Wine Served to Ottawa Alcoholics in Harm-Reduction Move

Homeless alcoholics in Ottawa, Canada, are being offered wine at shelters in a bid to get them to cut back on the stronger stuff, Bloomberg News reported Feb. 10.

Roger Bertrand, 45, says the free wine from the Shepherds of Good Hope shelter has helped him cut his alcohol consumption in half. "I can get only a shot an hour," he said. "I don't drink beer, just the house wine. Next it will be Nestle's Quik."

The program is part of a $349-million nationwide program to help Canada's homeless. "This is a last-ditch attempt to try and control a very long-standing problem in some people," said Dr. Tiina Podymow of the University of Ottawa, who is studying whether controlled drinking can help reduce dependency among alcoholics. "The approach was to try to reduce harm without demanding abstinence."

Toronto's Seaton House, another homeless shelter, now allows residents to drink, and will exchange beer for alcohol-bearing mouthwash and cologne -- substances often consumed by street alcoholics.

Participants in the Ottawa program cut their emergency-room visits by 35 percent and halved their altercations with police, according to research published in the January 2006 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

That contrasts with residents at typical homeless shelters, who "get good and drunk in the evening, and the first thing they have to do in the morning is go out and find another source of alcohol," said Ken Kraybill of the U.S. National Health Care for the Homeless Council. "That ends up creating visits to the ER."



Podymow, T., et al. (2006) Shelter-based managed alcohol administration to chronically homeless people addicted to alcohol. Can. Med. Assoc. J., 174: 45-49.