Ah, San Francisco. The city where good ideas go to die. As we've discussed repeatedly, the City by the Bay has been battling an epidemic of crime and homelessness for years. Residents with the means to do so have been fleeing in significant numbers. Drug abuse and alcohol addiction have been running rampant among the homeless population, but the city has come up with a plan to deal with that. It was recently revealed that they've been spending up to five million dollars per year to provide free shots of vodka and mugs of beer to homeless alcoholics. Who says that big cities can't meet the needs of the people? (Daily Wire)

San Francisco is spending around $5 million a year to give vodka shots and glasses of beer to homeless people with severe alcohol addiction in an effort to cut down on calls to police and hospital stays, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The city’s “managed alcohol program” started during the COVID pandemic, but came under fire earlier this week after Adam Nathan, the chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco Advisory Board, posted a thread on X, saying he “stumbled upon the building where they have this program.”

“The location is an old hotel in SOMA,” Nathan wrote. “Inside the lobby, they had … kegs set up to taps where they were basically giving out free beer to the homeless who’ve been identified with AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder).”

Here's the tweet from the Salvation Army's Adam Nathan where he blew the story open.

Did you know San Francisco spends $2 million a year on a "Managed Alcohol Program?" It provides free Alcohol to people struggling with chronic alcoholism who are mostly homeless. I stumbled upon the building where they have this program. This is what I saw.🧵

— Adam Nathan • blaze.ai (@adampnathan) May 8, 2024

So it's called the "Managed Alcohol Program." It was the brainchild of a nursing school professor named Shannon Smith-Bernardin. She said that the goal of the program is to "stabilize the alcohol use of the homeless addicts so they’re not binge drinking or stopping drinking and having seizures." What does "stabilize" even mean in this context? If the goal of your treatment program is to get people off of their addiction to drugs or alcohol, giving away free vodka and beer every day doesn't sound like it would be terribly effective.

I suppose one might argue that giving out legitimate beer and vodka to alcoholics could prevent them from drinking something worse. Back during the great depression, homeless drinkers were known to consume "squeeze" in the form of mouthwash or even watered-down Sterno. Many went blind or even died as a result. However, the creators of the program argue that they are also preventing alcoholics from experiencing "potentially life-threatening effects of alcohol withdrawal, such as seizures and injuries."

They may be averting withdrawal symptoms, but how does a perpetual supply of booze steer people toward detox and recovery? It seems like that's what they should be focusing on. Is there another parallel program operating out there somewhere in San Francisco where they are giving away heroin to drug addicts? It's probably not a silly question since they already set up booths and vending machines where they give away free syringes. 

This just doesn't sound like a solution to me. The city needs to be focusing its resources on getting these people off of the streets and into rehabilitation programs. If they refuse, they could be locked up in jail until their withdrawal symptoms fade. But that would no doubt be seen as "cruel and abusive" treatment. Of course, if they switch from distributing vodka to Hendrick's Gin, I may consider moving there myself. The prices are through the roof these days.