Name your poison

Julie Robotham
January 13, 2006

It's so practical it couldn't possibly happen here.Canadian doctors have completed a controlled experiment to give alcohol-addicted homeless people limited quantities of grog while they are at a shelter. The aim was to see whether it reduced dangerous binges and crime and kept them out of the emergency department or the clutches of the law.And it worked! 17 long-term alcoholics, mostly middle-aged men in Ottawa, were allowed alcohol on demand, up to 140 millilitres of wine or 90ml of sherry hourly between 7am and 10pm.
After five months to two years in the program, they halved on average the frequency with which they had to be taken to hospital, and police reports were also well down for all but two of the participants.Their alcohol intake was also reduced, from an average 46 drinks daily (give or take - most used to drink until they passed out) before going on the program to an average eight drinks, according to the report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. A couple of them even detoxified after stabilising their intake on the program, a "formidable achievement" as Tina Podymow and Jeff Turnbull point out with justifiable proudness.Naturally, it's attracted some envy. "I believe the taxpayers (including myself) have paid for this wine," wrote hard-up student Yury Monczak to the journal's e-letters section. "If all citizens are equal in Canada, please let me know where I can sign up to participate in this program and get my free daily wine and sherry doses."And it won't go down well with abstinence-based organisations such as the Salvos.But it's a logical extension of harm-reduction programs in other addictions, such as methadone prescribing for heroin addiction. Odd, then, that it's never been tried before. Guess there's a different type of stigma around alcohol.