INSTRUCTIONS TO SUBMIT A PAPER TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE journal (SAJ)

December 14, 2022

SAj (impact factor = 3.9) is entering its 43^rd year of publication. In 2022, the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance Use and Addiction (AMERSA) secured a new publisher for the journal (SAGE Publications, Inc). All of the notoriety, journal metrics, editorial effectiveness, and activities of the journal will successfully transfer to the new publisher. 

While the new website portal to submit to SAj is being developed, we invite you submit your authored work to be considered for publication in SAj to us directly via email. Submission will be peer reviewed (blinded to reviewers and authors) and its outcome for publication in SAj will be adjudicated relatively quickly by the editorial team. Accepted articles through this email process will be published in SAj in the print journal in 2023. Once published, we will highly promote your findings, commentary, and/or narrative through our blog and social media platforms.

In order to submit to SAj during the publisher transition, please follow the following instructions:

1. Please FORMAT your manuscript as described at https://amersa.org/instructions-for-authors-2/ . Please note that these instructions are dynamic and may change during the transition to a new publisher, but the types, general format, and word counts/limits will be maintained. 
2. Please submit your COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT (including cover page, abstract, references, tables, figures, online appendices, etc.) as an attachment addressed to the email below.  This document represents your entire work. Please title the COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT title with the word COMPLETE, corresponding author’s last name, year of submission, month of submission date of submission (e.g., COMPLETE_GORDON_2022_12_14). Please submit as a Microsoft Word document.
3. Please submit your BLINDED MANUCRIPT (no cover page, no identifying information throughout the narrative/text using blacked out text “…University of Utah IRB…”)) as an attachment addressed to the email below. Please label the BLINDED article with a brief descriptive name, year of submission (YYYY), date of submission (MMDD) (e.g., BLINDED_PerspectivesOfOpioidPrescribers_2022_12_14). This document will be converted to a .pdf file (by us) and sent to external peer reviewers. Please submit the BLINDED MANUSCRIPT as a Microsoft Word document.
4. Please submit a COVER LETTER which confirms, attests, and relates the following. Please title the COVER LETTER title with the word COVER, corresponding author’s last name, year of submission, month of submission date of submission (e.g., COVER_GORDON_2022_12_14). Please submit the COVER LETTER as a .pdf formatted document.
   1. Confirm that the paper represents original work and that its content has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere
   1. Confirm that all the authors have approved the final version of the manuscript
   1. Provide an accounting whether the work has been presented in oral or poster form and, if so, what conference/venue was the work presented at and the date(s) of the presentation
   1. Declare any conflict of interests of any of the authors
   1. Attest and provide permission for any second party material has been obtained and will be submitted as evidence
5. If your work has been previously peer-reviewed in other journals and you have revised your work based on these prior reviews, we welcome you to provide 1) the prior reviews and 2) your responses to the prior reviews in the COVER LETTER. We expect that you will provide these prior reviews in total, without editing or elimination of narrative you deem not appropriate. Please see our author instruction website for further instructions on this process. This may, but is not guaranteed, to expedite our review process.
6. Upon receipt of your email with 3 attachments a “received SAj submission” email will be sent within 24 hours.

All submissions should be sent to Adam J. Gordon MD MPH, SAj Editor-In-Chief at the email address: SAjEditorAMERSA@gmail.com. Questions about this process can also be addressed at that email.