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Ottawa program offers drinks to homeless alcoholics
CBC News ^ | 01/06/06 | CBC News

Posted on 01/03/2006 7:34:37 PM PST by Fido969

Ottawa program offers drinks to homeless alcoholics Last updated Jan 3 2006 07:37 AM EST

CBC News

Shelters across the country are taking a closer look at an Ottawa shelter that gives drinks to homeless alcoholics after a study suggested the program is having a positive impact.

Two men in the program receive their drinks at an Ottawa shelter.

Dr. Tiina Podymow envisioned the program after volunteering with chronic alcoholics, including some who drank upwards of 40 drinks per day of alcohol and liquids such as mouthwash.

Participants in the Managed Alcohol Project were given permanent beds in a shelter and, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m, allowed to have one drink of homemade wine or beer per hour, carefully measured out at a dispensary counter.

A study published in this week's edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal is raising interest in the program.

Completed by the shelter's medical director, Dr. Jeff Turnbull, the study examined the program's impact on 17 residents.

Most had been alcoholics for 35 years before starting the program.

Turnbull's study found:

Participants who typically had 46 drinks a day before the program dropped to about eight drinks a day during the program.

The number of visits to the emergency room fell by 36 per cent.

The number of encounters with police was essentially halved.

Critics say there's no way to judge how effective the harm-reduction approach is because there's no comparison group in the study, such as people taking part in an abstinence program like Alcoholics Anonymous.

But Turnbull says the aim of the program is not complete abstinence.

"We always try to encourage people to stop drinking, but we are realistic," he said. "These are people who have spent 20 to 30 years on the street and trying to get them to stop alcohol is not possible at this time."

Others question the reasoning behind the program.

"If this works for alcoholism and you can keep your streets cleaner and safer, then what is stopping you from doing it for cocaine addicts or crystal meth people?" asked Salvation Army spokesperson Brian Venables.

Podymow says she understands the criticism.

"I would totally agree the best treatment is to stop completely," she said, "but if the person with the disease isn't going to stop, what else is the plan?"

Wendy Cooper and Jimmy Smyth went through the program together and are now both completely dry.

"If it wasn't for the program, I seriously say I would've been dead by now," said Cooper.

With a year-long waiting list to get into the program, several shelters in other cities are interested in adopting it.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: alcoholism; canada; drunks; enablers; nannystate
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The ultimate of the enabling nanny state. How to deal with drunks? Just get them off the street, into taxpayer-funded housing, and keep them drunk on the taxpayer's dime. Oh, Canada, eh?

Alchoholism is a PROGRESSIVE desease. There is a temporary improvement - but these folks will just accelerate on their downward slide.

1 posted on 01/03/2006 7:34:38 PM PST by Fido969
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To: Fido969

Hopefully the Liberals will soon be homeless....


2 posted on 01/03/2006 7:44:15 PM PST by CanadianBloodAmericanHeart
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To: Fido969
One problem is free health care. We have to pay for all of their medical care. And in Canada, free health care is the holiest of holy cows. It is honestly, and pathetically, one of the key defining "Canadian" things. Saying bad things about free health care is pretty much taken as blasphemy. Or more like burning an American flag to the Americans. Isn't it great that the Canadian national identity is intertwinned with a socialist utopian boondoggle?

So this is, in a way, cost reduction (if it pans out as advertised at least, which I wouldn't bet on). Bah. I'm not sticking around in the country for long.

3 posted on 01/03/2006 7:45:59 PM PST by M203M4
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To: Fido969
Hey, they can't disagree with you when they are drugged or drunk. Very nice passive little citizens when they are on the sauce. And they vote, too.
4 posted on 01/03/2006 7:49:06 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: Fido969

No A.A. in Canada? Or is that somehow politically incorrect?


5 posted on 01/03/2006 7:54:29 PM PST by Salman
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To: Salman

They have AA, but AA requires one to admit they have a problem and take responsibility for themselves and their sobriety.


6 posted on 01/03/2006 7:56:44 PM PST by Fido969 ("And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).)
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To: Fido969

What a great idea! We should ship all of our bums to Canada.


7 posted on 01/03/2006 7:58:01 PM PST by Brett66 (Where government advances – and it advances relentlessly – freedom is imperiled -Janice Rogers Brown)
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To: dhs12345
Hey, they can't disagree with you when they are drugged or drunk. Very nice passive little citizens when they are on the sauce. And they vote, too.

Yeah, there is a long waiting list to get into the program.

Lessee, detox, rehab and six months in a halfway house... Or plan B - the government give them a free place to stay and feeds them free drinks.

OK, soppy, what say you?

8 posted on 01/03/2006 7:58:33 PM PST by Fido969 ("And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).)
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To: M203M4
Just hit me the other day (I may be completely wrong):

Why are Canadian drugs so cheap? Because the U.S. citizen is subsidizing Canadian drugs.

How? Canada, in mass, negotiate for cut rate prices on all drugs. Drugs that are developed and manufactured here in the U.S. and used by U.S. citizens.

If the U.S. were band together to do the same, then the drug companies would have to raise Canadian drug prices or accept much lower profits. Note: these profits are used to research new drugs.

The same would happen if more and more Americans buy their drugs from Canada. Bet you there is some contractual agreement with the drug companies to limit the number of sales back to the U.S. through Canada.

Americans are subsidizing the "wonderful" Canadian Health Care system.
9 posted on 01/03/2006 8:04:13 PM PST by dhs12345
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To: Fido969

Benefit of this program:

The nannies feel better about themselves

They ignore the sad reality that essentially there is nothing they can do to genuinely help these people other than food and shelter. i.e., make them a little more comfortable on their way to death.


10 posted on 01/03/2006 8:09:50 PM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s......you weren't really there.)
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To: CanadianBloodAmericanHeart

It'll never happen. They keep stealing our money.


11 posted on 01/03/2006 8:12:42 PM PST by Just Lori (The road to hell is paved by liberals.)
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To: Fido969

I hope they're giving them some smokes too !


12 posted on 01/03/2006 8:19:45 PM PST by Mears (The Killer Queen)
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To: ChildOfThe60s

oh Can a duh


13 posted on 01/03/2006 8:27:07 PM PST by Rakkasan1 (Peace de Resistance! Viva la Paper towels!)
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To: Fido969

That's not the half of the socialist state, how about this one: the City of St. Louis sets homeless alchololics up in apartments with cabinets stocked with liquor! Reason, they'd rather "provide" the liquor since the addicted will probably get it somehow and it would be better to provide it rather than have the addicts stealing, etc. Taxpayer funded addictions?


14 posted on 01/03/2006 8:27:08 PM PST by zerosix (Native Sunflower)
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To: Spanaway Lori

Now there's where you are wrong. It's never been OUR money. It's their money. I would give both testicles (OK not both, but the left one) to be able to leave this sorry excuse for a country....


15 posted on 01/03/2006 9:34:23 PM PST by CanadianBloodAmericanHeart
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To: Fido969

Ottawa shelter that gives drinks to homeless alcoholics


----Might as well start offering crack and heroin to homeless drug addicts cause now they will be screaming discrimination . (just kiddin)


16 posted on 01/04/2006 12:43:57 AM PST by WasDougsLamb (I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man)
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To: Fido969

There is another angle to this that I just thought of. The nannies are slowly [deliberately?] euthanizing these sad creatures. They are already killing themselves. Isn't it more kind and dignified if they don't have to steal and can stay comfortable while the government helps them along to their destination? Everyone in society benefits this way (liberal reasoning), don't they?


17 posted on 01/04/2006 5:04:16 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s......you weren't really there.)
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To: Mears
I hope they're giving them some smokes too !

No smoking!

18 posted on 01/04/2006 5:54:46 AM PST by Fido969 ("And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).)
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To: ChildOfThe60s
Isn't it more kind and dignified if they don't have to steal and can stay comfortable while the government helps them along to their destination?

Hmmm...

I think the government should give me cars, homes, boats, vacations - because if they don't I'll just exploit the working class and get those things anyway.

19 posted on 01/04/2006 5:56:08 AM PST by Fido969 ("And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).)
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To: zerosix
Reason, they'd rather "provide" the liquor since the addicted will probably get it somehow and it would be better to provide it rather than have the addicts stealing, etc

You know - I don't believe the claim that the consumption of these people dropped from 30 something drinks a day to 8. I doubt that the 30 something number was an average, and also I'd be willing to bet that when these drunks get there hourly ration of rum (More, sir?) they lick their lips and say to themselves "That didn't quite cut it" and go out and hustle, steal, panhandle, whatever, for more booze to get up to whatever level they think they needed.

20 posted on 01/04/2006 6:01:20 AM PST by Fido969 ("And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32).)
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