It may well be that a third glass of wine dramatically increases the risk of accident and injury to the drinker. But what good are the federal government’s new healthy drinking guidelines if they deviate so far from the norm of usual social drinking practices?

Surely the purpose of official drinking guidelines are not to represent some unrealistic medical ideal, but to actually convince drinkers to moderate their consumption. Why then lower the definition of ‘binge drinking’ to a level which will be dismissed by most responsible drinkers as absurd? What little power the phrase ‘binge drinking’ had is dramatically reduced by this change.