Journal at the Forefront of Substance Use Research Turns 85

Founded in 1940 and published by the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies, the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugsis a leading nonprofit voice in understanding addiction

Sometimes research goes viral, even if the findings aren't exactly what people want to hear.

A study published in the July 2024 issue of Rutgers University's Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs overturned decades of conventional wisdom: No level of alcohol consumption is safe.

The news ricocheted across newspapers, blogs and policy papers worldwide. Overnight, drinkers paused, putting down their glasses to ponder the health implications of their habit.

"It is by far our most downloaded article ever," said Paul Candon, the journal's editorial director. "The impact and reach in the field are off the charts."

For 85 years, the nonprofit journal - based at the Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies, within the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology - has been at the forefront of alcohol research. Founded in 1940 at Yale after Prohibition's repeal, it is the longest-running publication in the United States dedicated entirely to substance use studies.

The Center went on to host the nation's first professional training program on alcohol, counting Alcoholics Anonymous founder William "Bill W." Wilson among its instructors.

The journal's pages have featured groundbreaking work on alcohol use, addiction and breath-alcohol analysis. Its 1941 report on the Alcometer, an early breath test, remains a landmark. Its scholars also helped create the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a department within the U.S. National Institutes of Health that helps researchers secure funding for their work.

In 1962, the Center was relocated to Rutgers. The journal moved as well, adopting its current name in 2007 to reflect the field's expanding focus on substances beyond alcohol.

Over the decades, the journal has highlighted leading research on epidemiology, treatment, genetics and alcohol-control policies. More recently, attention has shifted toward opioids and cannabis.

A perspective articlepublished in July 2025, for instance, challenged current law enforcement methods for detecting marijuana impairment, calling available tools pseudoscientific "police science."

"Legalization of marijuana use must be accompanied by urgent efforts and dedicated funding for the development and implementation of practical, accurate, and objective methods for on-the-spot determination of whether a person is dangerously impaired by marijuana," said William J. McNichol, an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School.

Still, nothing has matched the July 2024 reassessment of alcohol consumption. Based on a meta-analysis of 107 longitudinal studies, the paper found that most research linking moderate drinking to health benefits suffers from fundamental design flaws - particularly that they are largely focused on older adults and fail to account for lifetime drinking patterns.

Through its publication of multidisciplinary, cutting-edge articles, the journal is a perfect example of how our Center and graduate school have been meeting the moment with impactful research for many decades, with more to come.

Denise Hien

Helen E. Chaney Endowed Chair in Alcohol Studies & Former Director, Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies

Tim Stockwell, a scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the study's lead author, reported that there is no completely safe level of drinking. Today, Stockwell's paper ranks in the top 5% of all research outputsscored by Altmetric, which tracks the online reach of published research across social media, news outlets and other platforms.

The attention has also bolstered traffic to the journal's other work, including an open-access, public-domain photo databaseof more than 1,000 alcohol- and other substance-related images.

"We get about a million hits a year on our website," said Candon. "And we keep growing."

While that paper has led people to re-think alcohol consumption science and their own health choices, the findings have drawn detractors - including voices showcased in the journal. In a letter published in the November 2024 issue, Mark Nason, an alcohol research analyst at the Prevention Research Institute in Lexington, Kentucky, highlighted several limitations to the Stockwell study and concluded that the debate over alcohol consumption is far from settled.

Operating as a single-title publisher today is no easy feat. With just a handful of staff, the journal remains a vital player in the vast sea of profit-driven, corporate academic publishing.

"I see it as our charge to remain nonprofit and independent, competing with other, better-resourced journals while being just as good or better," Candon said. "We'll keep going as long as people keep finding our studies useful and relevant."

Denise Hien, the Helen E. Chaney Endowed Chair in Alcohol Studies and former Center Director, agreed. "Through its publication of multidisciplinary, cutting-edge articles, the journal is a perfect example of how our Center and graduate school have been meeting the moment with impactful research for many decades, with more to come."

Rutgers GSAPP marks its 50th anniversary this year, celebrating a half-century of advancing mental and behavioral health through education, research and service.