The president of Great Britain's Royal College of Physicians said that alcohol education efforts have failed and that the only way to prevent excessive drinking is to raise alcohol prices, ban alcohol advertising, and reduce availability, Reuters reported Dec. 21.

The Royal College's Ian Gilmore joined liver specialist Nick Sheron of Southampton University Hospital issued a statement saying, "To suggest, as producers and retailers do, that increasing the price of alcohol would not reduce alcohol-related harm goes against the evidence and the fundamental principles of marketing -- product, price, promotion, and place."

"How many more lives will be damaged by alcohol in the U.K. before our governments decide to tackle the problem with measures that are likely to work?" the doctors wrote. "This seems justification enough for society to debate what reasonable and evidence based means could reduce the harm caused by alcohol."

A spokesperson for The Portman Group, which represents the alcohol industry in the U.K., said that excessive drinking among adults was declining and that improved product labeling was educating consumers about the dangers of excessive consumption.