Vive la France! Vive la France mobilisée!

Earlier this summer, the French government continued with one really good idea:  getting French communities to work together to combat addiction, and giving them the money needed to do so effecxtively.

The announcement was made in the form of a second request for proposals on the web-site of the French Ministry of Solidarity and Health (even in French the title is catchy -- "Ministère des Solidarités et de la Santé".  Civil society organizations, academics, health professionals and other non-commercial interests are invited to apply for funding.

A similar RFP was issued last year for mobilization projects focused on tobacco, with a budget of 5 million euros. The "Fonds de lutte de tabac" as it was then known, allocated more than 90 million euros to other tobacco-related program costs.

The Ministry's objectives for civil society activities, as translated, are pasted below. They include exposing the marketing practices of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis industries, and denormalizing the use of these addictive products. Applications can be submitted up to September 16, 2019.

The best part? French tax payers are not footing the bill for this work. Since 2017, the "Fonds de lutte" has been financed by a special tax on the tobacco industry.

Extract from the Ministry of Solidarity and Health

Call for proposals: Mobilizing Civil Society against addiction

As part of the fund for the fight against addiction, a call for projects is launched to support actions of a national nature carried out by civil society actors . It is open until September 16, 2019 .

The objective is to support national projects that aim to:

• improve information and understanding, especially of the general population or specific audiences, elected officials and opinion leaders, on the impact and dangers of the use of psychoactive substances (in particular tobacco, alcohol and cannabis) and the benefits of stopping or reducing consumption;
• deconstruct the marketing and marketing strategies of the tobacco, alcohol and / or cannabis industries;
• promote the denormalization of tobacco, alcohol and cannabis in society, especially among young people;
• promote the involvement of users or former users themselves (young people, peer helpers or expert patients, pregnant women, etc.), especially in stop-smoking, risk-reduction and / or advocacy projects;
• equip and support the practices of health professionals and the socio-educational sector in the prevention of risky consumption of psychoactive substances or risk reduction.

This call for projects is aimed at associations, groups of associations working in the fields of the fight against tobacco and addictive behaviors, prevention and health promotion, the fight against precariousness, Patients, users and consumers associations, learned societies and health professionals.

Project promoters must be non-profit and have no link with the tobacco industry (Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) or supply chain operators alcohol or cannabis.