Eskimo in Frobisher Bay, a new Baffin Island town, became legally entitled to drink alcoholic beverages in 1960. They embraced the opportunity with alacrity, one result being many arrests for drunkenness. To curb drinking, a law in 1962 limited alcohol sales. Public drunkenness has since declined and older Eskimo have begun to learn a drinking pattern resembling that of their Eurocanadian neighbors. Eskimo drinking shows few signs of being deficiency motivated. Men drink for the pleasure it gives them and consumption correlates with economic and social status, being one of the marks of a full-fledged townsman. Regular drinkers furnish only a small part of the trouble with which police must cope.