Members buy a brew kit for $40 or $50 and are paid a small stipend to make beer and wine, which sells for $2 and $2.50 per litre, respectively. They can also exchange non-beverage alcohol for the safer home brew. They are connected to PHS’s other services, including physicians, counsellors and housing.
That report also found that provinces spend $8,100 every time someone is hospitalized because of heavy drinking, compared to the $5,800 spent on most other hospital stays. Across Canada, hospitalizations caused by alcohol (77,000) exceeded those caused by heart attacks (75,000), according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.