Hook a Brother Up

Panhandlers have become a real menace since the pandemic hit. They stumble around the street asking for money, totally ignoring social distancing rules, and coughing in a decidedly covidy fashion.

If you ask them if they're hungry, most will forthrightly tell you that the local food banks and shelters provide them with two or three meals a day. They’re not starving. Not here. Not yet.

What the vast majority of them want money for is booze. And since many of them are long-term alcoholics, this need is every bit as real and necessary to their health and survival as their need for food. Quitting alcohol cold-turkey when you’re a hardcore alcoholic can literally kill you.

After pointing out these incontrovertible facts on Boulevard Saint-Laurent this afternoon, my wife proposed a brilliant solution to the problem: namely, that we should hook panhandlers up with free booze during the pandemic. One or two of those big bottles of crazy strong beer per day should do the trick and keep them off the streets.

Is this an ideal solution? Of course not. But it’s a thoroughly sound harm-reduction strategy. Park your moralism for a moment, folks, and think it through. Most of these people can’t quit, not now; and they’re going to get their drink on one way or the other whether we like it or not. As it stands, they’re getting it in a way that endangers us all. So why don't we just hook them up for while?