 The programme has been duplicated in other Canadian cities, and a study of Ottawa's "wet shelter" found that emergency room visit and police encounters by clients were cut by half.The study, published in the "Canadian Medical Association Journal" in 2006, found that serving chronic street alcoholics controlled doses of alcohol also reduced their overall alcohol consumption.Researchers found that programme participants cut their alcohol use from an average of 46 drinks a day when they entered the programme to an average of 8 drinks and that their visits to emergency rooms dropped from 13.5 to an average of 8 per month, while encounters with the police fall from 18.1 to an average of 8.8.