(DailyAnswer.org) – The Democrat-governed City of San Francisco has come under fire for providing homeless people with free vodka shots and beer at the expense of the taxpayer under its “Managed Alcohol Program”.
The program, which is run by San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, gives controlled doses of alcohol to homeless alcoholics who participate voluntarily, with the aim of keeping them off the streets and reducing the strain on San Francisco’s emergency services. Though experts argue that the program could extend and save lives, critics are calling for the government to instead focus on funding effective rehabilitation and sobriety programs.
In its 2020 article on the pilot program, the California Health Care Foundation stated that the program has already been introduced in other countries such as Australia and Canada and tends to be administered by a nurse and qualified support staff in a homeless shelter, transitional home or permanent home. The foundation stated that it is one way of reducing harm to those suffering from alcohol addiction. The regimented quantities of alcohol provided by the program aim to help prevent dangerous side-effects of alcohol withdrawal, which can include seizures and physical injuries.
The program gained publicity and was criticized by conservatives after Adam Nathan, who founded the AI marketing firm Blaze, asked his X followers if they knew that the city spent $2 million on it each year. Nathan chairs the Salvation Army’s Metro Advisory Board in San Francisco. UC Berkeley Professor Keanan Joyner, who conducts clinical research at the university’s Externalizing and Addiction Mechanisms laboratory, argued that research shows how beneficial such harm reduction strategies can be. According to Joyner, current science is “very clear” that the reduction strategy used to treat alcohol and other forms of substance abuse is highly effective. The city’s Managed Alcohol Program also provides shelter, enrichment activities and three daily meals in addition to the controlled alcohol doses.
The program began in 2020 and aims not to reduce dependency or work towards abstinence but to improve the quality of life of addicts. Nathan added on X that though the program was supported by some studies, it “doesn’t feel right”. He argued that the program simply drags out addiction rather than helping addicts toward recovery. The Salvation Army’s programs focus on abstinence and recovery from addiction. San Francisco health officials responded by accusing Nathan of spreading misinformation, and claimed that alcohol was not readily available on the premises to anyone who walked in.
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