I wish we could drop this false perception that the drug we call alcohol is good for your health in some way — no drug is ‘healthy’. Drugs can be used in myriad ways, both positive and negative, and my personal opinion is that most drugs should be legal because prohibition does more harm than good.

To put it another way — now that cannabis is legal in some US states, do we have people saying ‘Cannabis in moderation is healthy’? I doubt it, even though cannabis is far safer than alcohol. We might say cannabis is fun, enlightening or pain-relieving, but we don’t describe it as ‘healthy’.