Study: Free booze benefits homeless alcoholics

[adarling]

Holy hell, what is coming to this world. Maybe it works but i don't think giving people with dependency problems more of what is causing the problem helpful. Its as if they were like, okay we give up, lets just give them what they want. So sad :(

TORONTO, Ontario (Reuters) -- Giving homeless alcoholics a regular supply of booze may improve their health and their behavior, the Canadian Medical Association Journal said in a study published on Tuesday.

Seventeen homeless adults, all with long and chronic histories of alcohol abuse, were allowed up to 15 glasses of wine or sherry a day -- a glass an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. -- in the Ottawa-based program, which started in 2002 and is continuing.

After an average of 16 months, the number of times participants got in trouble with the law had fallen 51 percent from the three years before they joined the program, and hospital emergency room visits were down 36 percent.

"Once we give a 'small amount' of alcohol and stabilize the addiction, we are able to provide health services that lead to a reduction in the unnecessary health services they were getting before," said Dr. Jeff Turnbull, one of the authors of the report.

"The alcohol gets them in, builds the trust and then we have the opportunity to treat other medical diseases... It's about improving the quality of life."





http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/01/05/toronto.booze.reut/index.html

[aquart]

1. Now can we apply it to drug addicts?

No damn reason for those people to be in jail.

[adarling]

2. exactly

i am beginning to hate people in general :( haha

[rucky]

14. methadone programs?

clean needles and sanitary disposal places.

[benburch]

3. In the Netherlands they have a concept to cover this sort of thing.

It is called "harm reduction". Applies equally well to almost all "victimless crimes" like drug addiction, prostitution, etc.

[crispini]

4. Wow. 15 glasses a day.

I can't even begin to fathom that.

[davepc]

5. government as an enabler. great.

I've known a fair amount of people with substance abuse issues in my time. What a dunce I was for not realizing the best way to help them was to go out of my way for them to feed their addictions.

[Cleita]

6. Wouldn't giving them a home be better?

Maybe they wouldn't need the booze as much and it would give them an anchor so they could concentrate on seeking help for their problem.

[niyad]

7. do you object to methadone? this works very much on the same sort

of principle. I can certainly see where it would cut down on the panhandling and the crimes associated with trying to get enough money for a "fix".

the american experiment with criminalizing illness has not proved a rousing success, so perhaps it is time to try some very different approaches.

[Swede]

8. I saw the story on the CBC.

Before they joined the program,they averaged 43 drinks a day. Once in the program they were down to 8. Their criminal activity dropped by 50%. I say give it some time and see if it works.

[EstimatedProphet]

9. There might be a point to this

There's a similar program with herion addicts going on in Great Britain.

[Warpy]

10. Have you ever seen untreated DTs?

Not only are they scary to witness, they are 50% fatal.

Giving any addict a steady dose of his drug of choice improves his behavior. When a 10 year program in the UK wherein addicts were registered and supplied with their drug of choice was completed, they found that not only had street crime decreased 80%, but 50% of the addicts had weaned themselves off the drug, an astounding success that no morality based substance abuse program has ever approached.

We need to start thinking differently about addiction, IMO. The way we've been doing things just hasn't worked.

[adarling]

15. i see your point

almost started closing the "mind door" like a repuke, sorry about that. Yes, i can understand the idea of trying to treat it differently, but it still seems wrong to me. There has to be a better way, and i wish i was the one to find it :(

[bemildred]

11. Harm reduction is good.

Self-righteous moralizing isn't.

[adarling]

16. what do you mean by that?

[waiting for hope]

12. Oh Lordy...

Bush may have to move to Canada after 2008......:evilgrin:

[nine23]

13. Perhaps if Americans on DU are genuinely interested in this issue,

...you might want to look beyond CNN and go to a news source from the country where the story originates.

Here's a link to the REAL CBC News piece. It's a little more, um...detailed than the CNN report, and may even help alleviate some of the 'shocked gasps' from otherwise 'liberal minded' folks on this thread.

Or, is Pat Robertson currently performing miracles on homeless, chronic, near-death alcoholics that people in Canada should know about?

And ...to the only otherwise informed poster on this thread: Yes. It's called "harm reduction". AS IN:

"HARM": Chronic alcoholics, drinking Lysol and dying in the gutter...

"REDUCTION": Administer - like a hospital nursing station - hourly "shots" of alcohol to calm their nerves while in their hostel (not prison) seeking treatment/life stability...

[adarling]

17. okay, thanks for setting it straight for me

I just saw it while surfing, and got pulled into the "shocked gasps" technique. Thanks again.

[EFerrari]

18. Exactly. Stop the roller coaster, stabilize the behavior, quiet

the shame. Then, maybe a person can begin to think about taking a step.

Harm reduction works. :)

[Bucky]

19. Applying this theory, how do you treat homeless victims of spousal abuse?

Hair of the dog theory... Let's bonk 'em on the head with a whiffle bat every couple of hours until they trust us enough to seek help.

Next up, aiding victims of anorexia by making them vomit.

[PDJane]

20. No, sorry.

Spousal abuse is not a victimless crime. Morevoer, the shame associated with spousal abuse is almost always laid on the victim, which is not my idea of harm reduction.

Anorexics don't vomit; you're confusing starving oneself to near death to bulimia, which is the binge and purge cycle. Both of those things are due to a distinctly warped body image and a need for control.

Alcohol and drugs can be fixed by taking away the stigma of needing to drink and the criminal behaviour associated with needing to pay for the substance.

[aquart]

21. Yup.

But you still arrest their asses if they get in a car and drive that way. Fair enough.