Behavioral Health Tobacco Initiatives

Transitioning to a Tobacco-Free Facility: Resources and Sample Policies

Transitioning to a tobacco-free facility isn’t always easy. Fortunately, many resources are available to help support agencies who are planning for and/or moving toward a tobacco-free campus policy. In this post, you’ll find a plethora of available resources from peer community behavioral health organizations and NBHNs alike. Resources include planning tools such as the webinar, Implementing Tobacco-Free Policies In Community Behavioral Health Organization and sample Tobacco-Free Policy Documentation such as this one from Pittsburgh Mercy.

For even more information on the impact of tobacco-free policies, and for the chance earn up to 6 CEUs, check out the online class from the Wisconsin Nicotine Treatment Integration Project highlighted below.

• Online Course: Training For Systems Change: Addressing Tobacco and Behavioral Health
• Archived Partner Webinar: Integrated Mental Health and Cancer Care for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness
• Article: Cigarette Smoking Status and Substance Use in Pregnancy
• Archived Partner Webinar: Placing our Efforts to Promote Health Equity into the Health Impact Pyramid: How is Tobacco Control Measuring Up?
  

In July 1992, Congress enacted the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration Reorganization Act (PL 102-321), which includes an amendment (section 1926) aimed at decreasing youth access to tobacco. This amendment, named for its sponsor, Congressman Mike Synar of Oklahoma, requires states to enact and enforce laws prohibiting the sale or distribution of tobacco products to individuals under the age of 18 years. States must comply with the Synar Amendment to receive their full Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant (SABG) awards.

SAMHSA implemented regulations that require states and U.S. territories to enact and enforce youth tobacco access laws; conduct annual random, unannounced inspections of tobacco outlets; achieve negotiated annual retailer violation targets; and, attain a final goal of 20 percent or below for retailer non-compliance.

Synar Inspections are the random controlled buys performed by the Cigarette and Tobacco Enforcement (CATE) Agents and Underage Cooperating Individuals (UCIs) based upon the random selection received from an independent contractor. The Synar inspections are used by SAMHSA to measure the State’s compliance rate.

It is important for cigarette/electronic cigarettes and tobacco licensees not to sell cigarette and tobacco products to minors. When these illegal sales are made, it decreases the Kansas compliance rates and it may reduce the amount of SABG funding received by KDADS for substance abuse and prevention programs.

KDADS' BHS Prevention Program provides oversight of the State’s Synar Tobacco Initiatives and contracts with the Kansas Department of Revenue and Greenbush to facilitate Synar Inspections. This initiative is a statewide environmental strategy designed to address universal prevention through restrictions on youth access to tobacco products.

On July 24 and 25 of 2018, KDADS and several partners including KDHE, NAMI Kansas, Kansas Health Foundation and the University of Kansas Cancer Center hosted a leadership academy on behavioral health disparities related to tobacco use. This leadership academy was sponsored by SAMHSA and federal technical assistance was provided by National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco & Cancer Control and the University of California – San Francisco’s Smoking Cessation Leadership Center.

This convening of leaders, peers and advocates in the behavioral health and public health fields was held in Topeka, Kan. The group met and developed a strategic framework for addressing behavioral health disparities associated with tobacco use. The attendees of the summit formed several committees and set goals for 2025 and agreed to reconvene another summit in 2022 and to review progress made and consider any changes to the strategy.

Anyone interested in working with one of the Summit strategy teams, please contact Andrew Brown.

KDADS has endorsed the Kansas Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care and is working to encourage further endorsement and implementation among behavioral health service providers. The voluntary Guideline is designed as a road map for providers to support their clients who are motivated to end their dependence on tobacco products through changes in policy and practice. The Guideline is based on 12 essential strategies and includes a list of resources to assist providers in adopting specific practices that integrate tobacco cessation with other behavioral health treatment. We invite providers and their associations to endorse the guideline as an aspirational statement. 

The Tobacco Guideline Self-Assessment tool is a companion document modeled on the 12 strategies in the Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care. Health care providers may use the tool to estimate the extent to which the strategies are being implemented and to describe how implementation is taking place. Completing the self-assessment will help providers identify the gaps in addressing the Tobacco Guideline.

To see which provider agencies and associations have endorsed the Tobacco Guidelines for Behavioral Health, see the list further down this page.

Click here  to review or print the Kansas Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care.

Click here to review or print the Tobacco Guideline Self-Assessment.

Click here to review or print the  Implementation Toolkit for the Kansas Tobacco Guideline for Behavioral Health Care

For assistance completing this assessment or implementing the Tobacco Guideline, please contact us at [email protected].