Ethical Policy

The Society for the Study of Addiction respects and supports the independence of the journal’s editors and exerts no authority over them.

Farmington Consensus

Addiction is a founding signatory of the Farmington Consensus. The Consensus is a series of ethical publishing guidelines for addiction journals, which 26 journals have adopted to date. The Consensus was developed in 1997 at the inaugural meeting of the group now known as the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE).

International Society of Addiction Journal Editors (ISAJE) Draft Ethical Guidelines

Building on the Farmington Consensus, the ISAJE Ethical Working Group has developed detailed guidelines on ethical issues. The resulting document can be found here. It endeavours to provide guidance to authors, editors and other individuals on ethical and procedural matters that affect the integrity of scientific publishing in the addiction field. We urge readers, writers, reviewers and the entire editorial network of Addiction to study the guidelines, to criticise them, to improve them and to use them effectively.

Ethics Editorials

“No switching off the camera: How Addiction will respond to infringements of ethical publishing expectation” (Addiction 96, 1391–1392). This editorial explains the journal’s policy on real or apparent breaches of ethical publishing norms by authors.

“Ethics Matter: To authors, editors and those we serve” (Addiction 98, 1–2). Babor’s editorial offers an introduction to the ISAJE guidelines and discusses some background issues.

Addiction has asked its senior editors to provide brief statements on any interests which might be seen as having a potential bearing on the independence of their editorial judgements. We have done so in the belief that such transparency is owed to our authors and readers, and is fair reciprocity for the requirement on declaration of interests which we put on authors, referees and book reviewers. Senior staff are expected to distance themselves from any editorial decision-making where potential conflict of interest might be deemed to exist. Similar statements from the journal’s associate editors are held in the editorial office.  Editors’ individual declarations of independence can be found on the Editorial Team page.