
The shelter that gives wine to alcoholics - nailer
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/26/homeless-shelter-ottawa-gives-wine-to-alcoholics
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vintermann
> Windsor’s lifestyle was not only self-destructive and devastating to his
> family, it was also costly to Canada’s taxpayers. A trip to the hospital
> cost $243 for the ambulance, and $250 for a doctor’s assessment. Going to
> the police station cost $256 for just one officer to talk to him and make
> notes.

Costly to him, costly to society, but profitable for some. Addicts are
immensely profitable customers. At least in Ontario with its state-run
monopoly stores, some of it goes back to those who pay. But much of the profit
goes to producers.

Here in Norway we have state monopolies on both alcohol (above a certain
%a.c.) and gambling. Control with the profit motive was once cited as a reason
for these monopolies, but that has long since fallen by the wayside - now they
are run as for-profit corporations, even with the state as owner.

A newspaper recently got hold of a leaked memo from the gambling monopoly
where they discussed how much they would lose by setting a maximum loss
threshold per month. They estimated that a loss limit of 15000 NOK (about 1800
USD) per month would cost them about 400 million NOK per year. That's assuming
all those so limited would keep losing the 15000 per month, and it's just the
top 1% so of users.

The alcohol and gambling industries may talk warmly of responsible use of
their products, but truth is that their profits come overwhelmingly from
extreme abuse. One customer like Windsor is worth maybe a hundred moderate
drinkers. I don't think they're going to give that up willingly - in a sense,
they're as addicted as their customers!

