The American Medical Association on Tuesday honored Dr. Dora Anne Mills – the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention – with the association’s loftiest award for public service, largely due to the state’s success in stemming the use of tobacco, especially in youth.

It’s a fitting accolade, as recent Maine report cards on tobacco use have been stunning. Youth smoking has plummeted 60 percent, and adult smoking 21 percent in the past decade, according to the American Lung Association. Maine’s the only state to receive all A’s from the organization for its anti-smoking efforts.

But gaudy grades, and glitzy awards, don’t mean Maine can afford to relax its vigilance on tobacco or other public health dangers. Smoking still kills thousands of Mainers per year, while alcohol remains a scourge, accountable for more than half the substance-abuse treatment admissions in the state, according to the Maine Office of Substance Abuse.

State efforts alone, although effective, aren’t enough. Furthering Maine’s successes in reducing tobacco consumption, and controlling alcohol abuse, must capture the attention of those most at risk of developing these poor health habits: teenagers and young adults.

Thankfully, this week, two groups in our area of Maine have emerged to do just that.

In Lewiston, the city’s Youth Advisory Council unveiled a new “U Booze U Looze” campaign at City Hall on Monday. It’s a youth-to-youth program developed to educate eighth-grade students about the perils of alcohol abuse before entering high school, as instructed by the high school students who know.

And in Rumford, a high school junior named Thomas Williams has sparked a new smoking awareness chapter called Ignite Oxford County, grounded from his experience watching his grandparents succumb to smoking-related maladies. Ignite is a national movement that uses youth to influence federal smoking legislation.

Both are firsts for the state, and encompass values needed to combat smoking and alcohol abuse: recognition of the dangers at an early age, and encouragement of preventative – rather than punitive – measures to stop dangerous public health problems in their tracks.

It’s here that long-term successes can occur, and make controversial initiatives – such as continual escalation of tobacco and alcohol taxes – that masquerade as public health campaigns a thing of the past. There’s little reason to increase cigarette or alcohol taxes if people simply don’t start smoking or drink moderately.

And maybe, just maybe, the youth-to-youth effort can finally deliver the message about alcohol abuse, and prevent more heartbreaking shrines to the shortsighted immortality of youth from appearing along Maine’s highways and byways, symbols to the penalty of drinking and slipping behind the wheel.

We applaud these efforts, and hope for their success. Good grades, and prestigious awards, are only temporary.

The hard work to keep Maine healthy is permanent.