High-magnitude and long-duration abstinence reinforcement can promote drug abstinence but can be difficult to finance. Employment may be a vehicle for arranging high-magnitude and long-duration abstinence reinforcement. This study determined if employment-based abstinence reinforcement could increase cocaine abstinence in adults who inject drugs and use cocaine during methadone treatment. Participants could work 4 hr every weekday in a workplace where they could earn about $10.00 per hour in vouchers; they were required to provide routine urine samples. Participants who attended the workplace and provided cocaine-positive urine samples during the initial 4 weeks were invited to work 26 weeks and were randomly assigned to an abstinence-and-work (n = 28) or work-only (n = 28) group. Abstinence-and-work participants had to provide urine samples showing cocaine abstinence to work and maintain maximum pay. Work-only participants could work independent of their urinalysis results. Abstinence-and-work participants provided more (p = .004; OR = 5.80, 95% CI = 2.03-16.56) cocaine-negative urine samples (29%) than did work-only participants (10%). Employment-based abstinence reinforcement can increase cocaine abstinence.

This study assessed whether attendance rates in a workplace predicted subsequent outcome of employment-based reinforcement of cocaine abstinence. Unemployed adults in Baltimore methadone programs who used cocaine (N 5 111) could work in a workplace for 4 hr every weekday and earn $10.00 per hour in vouchers for 26 weeks. During an induction period, participants provided urine samples but could work independent of their urinalysis results. After the induction period, participants had to provide urinalysis evidence of cocaine abstinence to work and maintain maximum pay. A multiple regression analysis showed that induction period attendance was independently associated with urinalysis evidence of cocaine abstinence under the employment-based abstinence reinforcement contingency. Induction period attendance may measure the reinforcing value of employment and could be used to guide the improvement of employment-based abstinence reinforcement.

Four pigeons pecked keys in two different procedures commonly used in the study of timing, or temporal discrimination. Sessions consisted of 40 trials. During half of the trials, two keys were presented for 50 s. Left-key pecks were reinforced according to a variable-interval 67.86-s schedule during the first 25 s of the trial, and right-key pecks were not reinforced. During the second 25 s of the trial, right-key pecks were reinforced according to the same schedule, and left-key pecks were not reinforced. In the other half of the 40-trial session, the center key was presented. The majority of these trials arranged fixed-interval 2.5-s schedules. Occasionally a probe, or peak-interval, trial was presented. These trials were 100 s in duration and terminated without reinforcement. These two procedures were used to examine the effects of morphine on indexes of timing and on patterns of responding. Morphine altered behavior in a race-dependent manner in both procedures. Low baseline (saline) response rates were increased following morphine administration, and high baseline rates were either unaffected or decreased slightly. Rate-dependent effects appeared as leftward shifts in the timing index for two-key trials and decreases in the index of curvature for fixed-interval trials. Despite large changes in response rates, no consistent shift of the peak time was observed during peak-interval trials. These results are discussed primarily in terms of rate dependency; that is, rates of responding following drug administration tend to be determined in large part by rates of responding under baseline conditions.

This study assesses the frequency that users of illicit drugs display unprofessional behaviors in an employment setting. This research was conducted in the Therapeutic Workplace, a model employment-based treatment program for chronically unemployed adults with long-histories of illicit drug use. Unemployed adults in methadone treatment, who were opiate and cocaine dependent, showed signs of injection drug use, and recently used cocaine were hired to work for 4 hours every weekday for 7 months. Results show that while the overall incidence of many undesirable behaviors is low, a small percentage of participants had serious workplace behavior problems that might limit their success in community workplaces. This study suggests that unprofessional behavior in the workplace could contribute to chronic unemployment in this population. KeywordsEmployment; Heroin Addiction; Cocaine Addiction; Contingency management; Reinforcement; Vocation rehabilitation Chronic unemployment is a serious problem among individuals with long histories of illicit drug use, and has been associated with continued drug use, poor treatment outcome, and criminal activity (Platt, 1995). A recent review showed that employment interventions for unemployed adults who have histories of drug addiction have had mixed effects. Some interventions had little or no effect in increasing employment (e.g., Coviello et al. 2004;Hall et al. 1981b;Butler et al. 2004;Lidz et al. 2004); others increased the percentage of individuals who obtained paid employment (e.g., Hall et al. 1981a;Staines et al. 2004). Most evaluations of employment interventions reviewed examined whether individuals exposed to the employment interventions obtained a job. However, little research has been conducted to examine the extent to which program participants maintain employment over extended periods of time. The information that is available on longer-term outcomes suggests that many intervention graduates who obtain employment do not reliably maintain their employment over time (e.g., Platt et al. 1993;Kemp et al. 2004; Dickinson and Maynard, 1981 NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptEvaluations of the few intensive programs that provide job skills training and supported employment show that many participants fail even to maintain their supported employment jobs and many who obtain competitive employment fail to maintain those jobs overtime (e.g., Dickinson and Maynard, 1981;Kemp et al. 2004). One of the most extensive and informative studies of employment interventions for illicit drugs users evaluated the effects of an intensive supported work intervention in 1,433 adults who were unemployed and who had been in substance use treatment within 6 months of enrollment in the study (Dickinson and Maynard, 1981). Participants were randomly assigned to receive the supported employment intervention or to a control condition. Supported employment participants could work in supported jobs for between 12 and 18 months. The supported jobs provid...