SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a person with a mental health issue, substance use disorder, or both are more than twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as a person without these behavioral health conditions and are more likely to die from a smoking-related illness than from their behavioral health conditions.
(b) The CDC has also found that smoking cessation reduces smoking-related disease risk and could improve mental health and substance use disorder recovery outcomes. Research shows that patients who are concomitantly treated for tobacco use disorder while receiving addiction treatment have a 25 percent increase in the likelihood of substance use abstinence one year after treatment compared to those not treated for tobacco use disorder.
(c) The CDC concludes that given that tobacco cessation in behavioral health treatment could improve both physical and behavioral health outcomes, and continued smoking worsens those outcomes, behavioral health treatment facilities are an important setting for evidence-based tobacco cessation interventions.
(d) The CDC notes that nicotine and opioid addictions are mutually reinforcing, whereas smoking cessation is associated with long-term abstinence after opioid treatment.
(e) The California Tobacco Control Program currently identifies persons with substance use disorders as a priority population.
(f) California ranks 41st in the United States on asking about tobacco in substance use disorder treatment and 32nd on providing tobacco use disorder treatment counseling in substance use disorder treatment.
(g) According to the CDC, in 2016, tobacco screening was the most commonly implemented tobacco-related practice in mental health and substance use treatment facilities.
(h) California must reduce barriers to tobacco use disorder treatment in order to eliminate tobacco-related health disparities among persons with substance use disorders.