How Addiction handles disagreements over potentially harmful terminology

What are authors, editors and reviewers to do when people who are sincerely and laudably interested in avoiding language that harms vulnerable people do not agree on what is harmful and what is not? One approach is for journals to create an extensive listing of terms that will and will not be allowed to appear in papers, monographs and website content. Our journal does enforce a few language rules; for example, referring to urinalysis results indicating drug use as ‘positive’ rather than ‘dirty’and avoiding the term substance ‘abuse’. We would also, of course, not allow racially or ethnically derogatory language were it ever included in submitted papers, but in living memory it has not been. However, after internal discussion the editorial team has decided not to attempt to generate a more lengthy list of forbidden terms because Addiction is a global, interdisciplinary journal whose readers and authors have diverse, competing opinions on what language is harmful and what is not. We instead follow four principles.