The past practice of incarcerating public inebriates as law violators has changed under legislation enacted in the 1960's and the 1970's. Under this legislation, public inebriates are now being referred by the police to social agencies for treatment rather than being processed through the criminal justice system. This handling of public drunkenness as the manifestation of a disease rather than criminal behavior is laudable, but the funding has not been provided to implement the strategy; e.g., there is only one detoxification facility in Los Angeles County that will routinely accept indigent public inebriates. Thus, the new legislation has caused public inebriates to be more prevalent than before its enactment. There should be more primary detoxification stations and long-term care facilities. This requires a coordinated effort to increase State and local funding for addressing this problem. This report details an organizational and policy strategy for achieving the intent of existing legislation and identifies measures for assessing the effectiveness of the strategy. 39 footnotes, 26-item bibliography. (Author summary modified)