Thursday 21 November 2013

Alcohol harm reduction in practice...

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Although I'm pretty sure Sir Ian Gilmore and Alcohol Concern wouldn't approve:

An unusual Dutch initiative aims to put an end to one of Amsterdam's worst nuisances -- those bawdy, loitering alcoholics -- by employing them in a kind of street cleaning corps. The problem, though, is that the state-financed Rainbow Foundation behind the project pays the self-professed chronic alcoholics in beer for their labor.

Perhaps, rather than nannying people whole aren't either a problem or harming their health, our public health people should look at schemes such as this - here's why:



I don’t know, but would be willing to bet, that most of these workers were consuming rather more than the equivalent of five cans of beer per day before they started in. The delivery is paced throughout the day so there’s no chance any of them get drunk. By delivering the beer as beer rather than as the cash equivalent encourages pacing things rather than having the workers spend it all on lower cost per unit binge at the end of the day.


It might not work for all these men - some may carry on old habits when not on the programme - but if a few drink less dangerously that's a real health gain. And Amsterdam gets some cleaner parks!

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I don’t know, but would be willing to bet, that most of these workers were consuming rather more than the equivalent of five cans of beer per day before they started in. The delivery is paced throughout the day so there’s no chance any of them get drunk. By delivering the beer as beer rather than as the cash equivalent encourages pacing things rather than having the workers spend it all on lower cost per unit binge at the end of the day. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/should-you-ever-pay-alcoholics-in-beer.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29#sthash.atiIcZqu.dpuf

3 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

If proposed in this country it would probably be judged against their human rights.

Jonathan Bagley said...

You can always trust the Dutch to exercise sound judgement free from prejudice and bigotry.

Junican said...

"There is no safe level of alcohol consumption".
The sort of situation that you describe is intolerable. Don't you realise that it sends out the wrong message?