Information For Authors

Article Processing Fees (APF)

Cannabis is a fully open access journal and is the official journal of the Research Society on Marijuana (RSMj). The cost of maintaining and publishing the journal are covered by the Article Processing Fees (APF). For non-members, the submission fee is $100.00 (US) per manuscript and is due at the time of submission. There are no additional fees and this fee is not refundable. For RSMj members, the fee is waived. Please specify in your cover letter to the editor which author(s) is a member of RSMj. You can join RSMj here, which allows you unlimited submissions to Cannabis. If you want to pay the fee and not join RSMj, please email the editor at erpeders@usc.edu for information on how to pay.

Manuscript Submission

Author(s) must verify that submitted manuscripts have not been previously published and are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) agree(s) to the terms and conditions of the journal. Any prior presentation of the data (i.e., conference presentation, abstract publication, etc.) should be noted during the submission process. Previous manuscripts published from the dataset (if any) should be noted in the methods section of the manuscript.

Manuscript Format

Cannabis uses a “submit your way” approach for initial submissions. This means you are allowed to submit your manuscript in any form, as long as it conforms to a basic scientific paper format which includes: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and References.

Reference style must be in the style of APA 7th Edition. It is the author's responsibility to ensure that all references cited in the manuscript are accurately included in the Reference section. If a paper is accepted, author's will be responsible for ensuring all citations in the manuscript and in the Reference section are in APA format.

Initial Submission and Review

Manuscripts are submitted online through the manuscript submission portal. 

We do not require a cover letter for submission. All information required for submission can be entered during the submission process. Please have the following ready for submission:

  • A fully blinded manuscript
  • List of all authors/co-authors
  • List of funding sources
  • List of 3 potential reviewers
  • Up to 5 keywords 

All manuscripts submitted to Cannabis are reviewed in a timely manner. Within 2 weeks of acceptance, authors will receive article proofs. The final proofs will be available online once approved by the lead author.

The review schedule is described below:

  1. All manuscripts undergo an initial internal review by an editor/associate editor.
  2. If a manuscript is deemed appropriate for the journal it will be sent out for review to at least 2 external reviewers who are considered to be experts in the field, based on their position and program of research. We strive to complete review within 2 months of submission and have initial decisions to authors within 8 weeks of submission. Note that as with all journals, this timeline is slightly delayed currently due to continued difficulties with securing reviewers.
  3. After review, the editor assigned to the submission and Editor-in-Chief will make a final decision on the manuscript based on internal and external (if applicable) reviews. Authors will receive an initial designation of (1) accept as is, (2) accept pending minor revision, (3) minor revise and resubmit, (4) major revise and resubmit, or (5) reject without further review.

Manuscript Revisions

If a paper is invited for revision, please upload a clean version of the manuscript for re-review, with a detailed cover letter detailing how the authors addressed each of the editor's and reviewers' comments. Revised manuscripts are due three months after the date of the editor's invitation to revise the manuscript. Please alert the assigned editor whether there is a plan to revise and resubmit the manuscript.

Article Types

Cannabis publishes the following article types:

   Original Reports:  An original report is a full-length description of original research on aspects of marijuana/cannabis consistent with the aims and scope of the journal. Word limit: 5,000 words excluding abstract, references, figures, and tables. An abstract of 250 words or less is required.  

   Brief Report:  A brief report represents an innovative study that may be premature for publication as an original research report because of small sample size, novel methodologies, etc. Brief reports should be designated as such and should not exceed 2,500 words. There is a limit of 4 combined Tables/Figures. An abstract of 250 words or less is required.    

   Review:  Review manuscripts consist of a comprehensive and systematic review and critical analysis of a field of research within the area of marijuana/cannabis. Reviews should include detailed information on search criteria and methods. Reviews should not exceed 4000 words. An abstract of 250 words or less is required.  

   Opinion: Opinion manuscripts are individual perspectives about an area within the field or a direction of research. The length should not exceed 2,500 words. There is no abstract required for an opinion piece.

   Conference Proceedings: As the official flagship journal of the Research Society on Marijuana, we publish conference abstracts after each yearly Research Society on Marijuana conference. Abstracts that are included in the journal have been peer-reviewed, accepted, and presented at the annual Research Society on Marijuana conference, and are submitted by the current conference chair, who is also designated as the Special Section Editor. The Editor and Managing Editor review abstracts in their final form before inclusion in the journal. No additional conference proceedings are accepted at this time. 

Issues with Submissions

If you are having any dificulties with the submission process, please contact the editor directly at: erpeders@usc.edu.

Open Access and Copyright

All articles published in Cannabis are made freely and permanently accessible online upon publication without access or subscription charges, embargo periods, or user registration. 

After acceptance of a manuscript, author(s) will sign an Open Access Licensing Agreement. Authors of articles published in the Journal will be the copyright holders and a Creative Commons CC BY license will be applied. For more information, please read the full Creative Commons CC BY license. United States government employees or other individuals who are expressly prevented from holding copyright for similar reasons can obtain nonstandard open access accommodations. Information on this process will be provided to you at time of acceptance.

Permissions and Reprints

Cannabis publishes articles under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without requesting prior permission from the Publisher or the author.

Archiving and Preservation 

The final published version (version of record) of all articles in Cannabis are published and maintained online through the journal website and archived through the library at The University of Central Florida. In addition, all articles will be deposited, without embargo, to PubMed Central at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. PubMed Central has sole control over when the paper is made live on PMC. Cannabis is fully NIH-, HHMI-, and Wellcome Trust-compliant. 

Ethical Considerations for Research with Human Subjects and Informed Consent Policy

All scientific findings should adhere closely to the guidelines established by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research (the Belmont Commission). Further information can be obtained here. Each submitted manuscript must note appropriate approval by an institutional review board, indicate that all participants were consented prior to participation, and endorse adherence to APA ethical guidelines for research with human subjects (Sales & Folkman, 2000).

In addition, in line with COPE guidelines and the WMA Helsinki Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, additional protections should be in place when working with vulnerable groups. This research should be, "responsive to the health needs or priorities of this group and the research cannot be carried out in a non-vulnerable group. In addition, this group should stand to benefit from the knowledge, practices or interventions that result from the research." (World Medical Association, 2013). Additional protections and provisions with the IRB for work with vulnerable populations, including but not limited to clinical trial guidelines, additional informed consent provisions, and participant privacy protections should be stated within the submitted article manuscript. Visit the USDHHS page for more information.

Publication Ethics

Authorship and Contributorship

Cannabis adheres to the Ethical Publication Practices and Responsible Authorship guidelines laid out by the Committee on Publication Ethics. COPE Authorship and Contributorship guidelines state that authors should follow the minimum standards of (1) making a substantial contribution to the work and (2) being accountable for the work and its published form. Please visit the COPE website for more information. 

Data Sharing Policy

Cannabis encourages authors to share their data if possible. In the Author Statement or Acknowledgement section of the manuscript, authors can state whether data, analytic code, and study materials are available and, if so, where to access them. Sharing is encouraged through posting of data and study materials in a repository, such as those found in this resource. Authors are also encouraged to be familiar with the Open Science Framework. All clinical trials published in Cannabis will need to be registered at ClinicalTrials.gov.

Conflicts of Interest

Cannabis adheres to the Farmington Consensus guidelines outlined by the International Society for Addiction Journal Editors. Please visit the ISAJE website for more information and a COI form here.

The senior or corresponding author of original articles, review papers, editorials, letters to the editor, commentaries, etc. should declare all funding sources and competing interests for the manuscript being submitted for editorial review.  ALL authors are requested to disclose to the corresponding author any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three (3) years of beginning the work submitted (e.g., research project, review paper, etc.) that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. Authors should use the following questions to declare funding sources and to decide whether they have any competing interests (1) funding sources (e.g., if the present work was supported directly or indirectly by the alcohol, gambling, tobacco or pharmaceutical industries, or by third-party organizations funded by these industries, or by governmental or other public sources) (2) competing interests: financial, (3) competing interests: non-financial. For more information about what should be specified in the Conflict of Interest statement, please refer here.

Corrections, Retractions, Plagiarism, and Editorial Expressions of Concern

If needed, the editor-in-chief will publish corrections to published manuscripts and expressions of concern, after reviewing these corrections and concerns with the manuscripts’ authors. If plagiarism and publishing malpractices are suspected, articles are subject to investigation and potential rejection or retraction. Author-requested retractions will be considered if authors can provide a rationale for the retraction. If accepted after review from the editorial board, the published article will be removed from the journal’s website and replaced with the extraction rationale. Editor-initiated retractions will be reviewed with the editorial board. If the editorial board is in agreement, authors will be able to provide a response. The published article will be removed from the journal’s website and replaced with the editor’s extraction rationale and the authors’ response.

Advertising Policy

We currently do not offer advertising space in the journal.