Open Bar at the Homeless Shelter

Leave it to those Canadians for creative ways to deal with homelessness and alcoholism - keep 'em drunk!

Free drinks may improve the health and lives of homeless alcoholics and reduce their run-ins with police, according to a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Seventeen chronic alcoholics who drank upwards of 46 glasses a day over the past 35 years, including cheap substitutes such as mouthwash that often led to unconsciousness, were offered a glass of wine or sherry each hour, from 7:00 am to 10:00 pm at an Ottawa shelter over five to 24 months.

Most of the fifteen men and two women, with an average age of 51 years, had tried detox programs and abstention, but were unable to maintain sobriety.

"These are people you and I would pass on the street totally inebriated, who had drunk huge amounts," said Jeff Turnbull, one of the authors of the study.

Three quit, three died of alcohol-related disease before the end of the study, but 11 others reported "a markedly decreased consumption of beverage and non-beverage alcohol, and most reported improved sleep, hygiene, nutrition and health," according to the authors of the study.

I looked through the article and didn't see any sign of a treatment program for these folks, other than liquoring them up. This is basically a way of surrendering to the problem, and just trying to keep the natives docile enough to handle.