Volume 46 Issue 2, April 2025

SAj Editorial Scholar Program

In January, the SAj Editorial Team announced the SAj Editorial Scholar Program, a program designed to engage early career clinical or health services scholars with SAj’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication. After reviewing a strong slate of qualified applicants, the SAj Editorial Team is pleased to announce the 2025 SAj Editorial Scholars, Rebekah Halmo, PhD, MSW, LCSW and Evans Kyei, PhD, MSN, RN.

Editorial Efficiency Metrics

Our volume of manuscripts be considered for the journal continue to be robust with over 341 articles considered for publication in the last 12 months and over 52 articles under current review. Average time from submission to first decision at 45 days and average time from submission to final decision is 55 days. Over 188 original research articles have been decided on in the last 12 months.

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Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj                                       April 2025

Substance Use & Addiction Journal (SAj) embarked on it 46^th year of publication with publication of Volume 46, Issue 1 in January 2025. In this issue, we are proud to publish In Support of the Decriminalization of Personal Drug and Paraphernalia Use and Possession: Position Statement of AMERSA, Inc. (Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction). This issue also included 12 papers from the NIH’s Integrative Management of Chronic Pain and OOUD for Whole Recovery (IMPOWR) Research Network, including 2 commentaries and 10 commentaries with protocol papers.

SAj Awards

During the 2024 AMERSA Annual Conference, we awarded the 2024 SAj Best Peer Reviewer Award to Joseph Mandato, a medical student, and SAj Most Downloaded Paper to Leslie Suen, MD, MAS; Michael Incze, MD, MSEd; Caty Simon; Honora Englander, MD; Jeffrey Bratberg, PharmD, FAPhA; Gail Groves Scott, MPH; and Rachel Winograd, PhD for their authorship of Methadone’s Resurgence in Bridging the Treatment Gap in the Overdose Crisis: Position Statement of AMERSA, Inc (Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction).

In December, the SAj Editorial Team announced that we will be selecting an “SAj Editors’ Choice Paper” on a quarterly basis from the papers published in the most recent issue. These articles will be highlighted in a collection on the Sage website (the publisher of SAj) and on the AMERSA website.

SAj Editorial Scholar Program

Consistent with the AMERSA strategic plan, we announced our SAj Editorial Scholar Program (https://amersa.org/saj-editorial-scholar-program/). Through this program, SAj seeks applications from multidisciplinary, post-graduate trained fellows/scholars and junior faculty to be an SAj Editorial Scholar. The goal of the SAj Editorial Scholar Program is to engage early career clinical or health services scholars with SAj’s editorial team to learn about editorial decision-making and enhance skills in scientific communication. This opportunity will be of interest to those interested in becoming journal editors as well as those looking to learn more about journal review processes. Applications are due on March 1, 2025.

Peer Review

SAj is always eager to add new peer reviewers to our slate of outstanding volunteers. The overall quality of the journal is significantly impacted by peer reviewers, whose volunteer efforts provide the Editorial Team with the information necessary to ensure that only the highest quality work appears in our journal. Comments and suggestions from peer reviewers can turn a marginal paper into a publishable work that advances the field. If you are interested in becoming a peer reviewer, please email saj@amersa.org.

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Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj

We are excited to bring you the first SAj blog post of 2025! Before looking ahead to the new year, we would like to reflect on the activities of 2024.

2024 continued to be a busy year for the SAj Executive Editorial Team. The 44th volume of SAj, published in 2024, completed the transition to the new publisher, SAGE, Inc, with our new name, Substance Use & Addiction Journal on January 1, 2024.

The SAj Editorial Team, which include Editor-in-Chief (Dr. Gordon) and two Deputy Editors (Drs. Corte and Faseru), and our Associate Editors had some transitions. The Deputy Editors expanded their scope of activities and serve as a liaison to several AMERSA activities. Our three new Associate Editors (Taneisha Scheuermann, PhD (Psychology, University of Kansas), Elizabeth Siantz, PhD (Social Work, University of Utah), and Jessica Wyse, PhD (Psychology, Oregon Health Sciences) were fully onboarded into the editorial team. Dr. Binswanger resigned from the Associate Editorial team after a decade of service.

A major revision of our author instructions occurred. Changes highlighted SAj’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In addition, consistent with this commitment, a person with lived experience was a named author in an SAj publication in 2024. SAj is now accepting “Commentaries with Protocol” manuscripts, and several authors published this article type in 2024. Several special sections from the NIH NIDA (IMPOWR Network) and a collaboration regarding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) were accepted for publication in 2024.

We are considering several new ventures for SAj in 2025: 1) develop an “SAj Editorial Fellows” program; 2) expand DEI-related content in SAj; 3) work on getting more persons with lived experiences voices in the journal; 4) revamp the greater Editorial Board of SAj; ad 5) improve promotion and dissemination of SAj content (X/Twitter followers are 5,000+).

Thank you for your interest in SAj – we look forward to an eventful 2025!

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Adam J. Gordon, MD MPH FASAM DFASAM, Editor-in-Chief, SAj