SIR – You have reported on Alcohol Awareness Week, raising issues about the risks associated with drinking. However, in none of the reports do you, or the Council that provides the information, make clear that moderate drinking is good for you – not simply harmless but good for you.

The safe drinking guidelines we are given by the NHS have no scientific foundation (as the man who set them said they were “plucked out of the air”) and the substantial evidence of how moderate drinking has a positive effect on life expectancy is simply ignored. If not drinking at all is safe then, to reach the same mortality risk, a male drinker needs to consume at least 30 units of alcohol per week and possibly as much as 50 units.

This doesn’t deny that there are people with a real drink problem who need help and support. However, we should focus our limited resources on helping these people rather than nannying the ordinary drinker for whom a tipple is harmless and pleasurable.

Coun Simon Cooke, Hallowes Park Road, Cullingworth