San Francisco spends $5 million a year on a so-called “managed alcohol program,” giving homeless alcoholics beer,wine and shots of vodka to “manage” their addiction. This deranged program has been running for four years without getting much media attention. I suppose so many other things are being mishandled in this rotting city that this one slipped under the radar. The theory underlying program is designed to minimize the amount of alcohol homeless people drink to control their addiction. It would be starnge indeed if this were a legitimate approach, since medical professionals make it very clear that drinking any alcoholic beverage (or mouthwash) makes recovery from alcoholism impossible, and “maintenance drinking” is ultimately a failed and often fatal strategy. Alcoholism is a progressive disease as well, so the longer a drunk is drinking, the more damage alcohol does to his or her body.
In the most woke-ravaged city in North America, nurses typically serve the homeless drunks the the equivalent of of one or two drinks three to four times a day, either a shot of vodka or other liquor, a glass of wine, or 12 nearly a pint of beer. The taxpayers of San Francisco must truly be brainwashed to tolerate seeing their hard-earned dollars going to pay for drinks for winos, killing them slowly at the city’s expense.
The only responsible way to get alcohol addicted street people out of the metaphorical gutter and on the way to recovery and a productive, happy life is to put them in a rehabilitation program, monitor their recovery, and take satisfaction from the relative few who will go on to live addiction-free lives. Giving them just enough alcohol to keep them dependent as their liver fail isn’t merely futile and misguided, it’s cruel.
Ethics Alarms 
Perhaps I am misremembering but don’t nurses have to take the Hippocratic Oath or something equivalent — First do no harm.
My mother was an RN and I cannot believe she would have gone along with this sort of thing.
And not just once, but 3-4 times per day? It’s a cliche but how can they sleep at night?
They probably sleep very well knowing that they are administering the ‘caring’ response to addiction. It is exactly the same approach as ‘affirming’ care for the mentally ill.
That’s why we now have safe injection sites where drug users can shoot up with medical attention immediately available. I have a hard time caring. If these idiots want to kill themselves, then let them do it, and get the hell off the welfare rolls. I know that sounds like Scrooge, but really, just how much more of this are we supposed to fund with our taxes? It’s becoming more and more obvious that the government is more interested in buying votes from the unproductive members of society than it is for doing anything for the productive members of society. Bust your ass for 40 plus years working, and your reward is to have lifelong grifters like Hillary Clinton “take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”
How long until some enterprising frat boys figure out how to get this program visit and fuel their next party?
Methadone clinics did not work, clean needle programs did not work, so why does one think that booze q.i.d. will be helpful. Does anyone in SF learn from either thier mistakes or the mistakes of others?