, Columnist
Trouble With Alcoholics? Give Them a Beer
Amsterdam's beer-for-work program illustrates the Netherlands's pragmatic, and surprisingly successful, approach to addiction.
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Talk about fighting fire with fire. In Amsterdam, a charity group is paying local alcoholics in be?r to clean up a public park. The men used to loiter in Oosterpark, located in a poor area where half the population is immigrant: Surinamese, Moroccan, Turkish. They drank, fought and made passes at women. Locals hated them.
Now residents smile at the cleaners wearing orange uniform jackets issued by the Rainbow Foundation. The former public nuisances start off the working day with two cans of beer each at 9 a.m. and walk out into the park and the adjoining streets with their garbage bags. They have another two beers at lunch and one more when they're done at 3:30 p.m. Apart from the beer, the day's wages amount to 10 euros ($13.69).