CannabisDependence.org publishes health-information content about cannabis use disorder (CUD), cannabis withdrawal, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS), recovery, and related clinical topics. Because health information directly affects how people make decisions about their own care, we hold ourselves to higher transparency standards than a typical opinion or lifestyle site. This page exists so readers, clinicians, search engines, and AI crawlers can verify exactly who is responsible for the content, what standards we follow, and how to reach us with corrections.
Lead Editor
RJ Bolton — lead editor and founder. RJ is responsible for the editorial direction of CannabisDependence.org, the source review on every page, the correction log, and the freshness-review schedule. Bylines on this site are house bylines — the convention used at many trade and policy publications — with the lead editor responsible for accuracy on every page that describes a clinical condition, withdrawal symptom, treatment approach, or recovery timeline.
CannabisDependence.org is independently published as part of the broader TryCannabis.org Cannabis Education Network. We are not a treatment center, a pharmaceutical company, a recovery-program affiliate, or a publication owned by any clinical organization. We are an independent educational publisher, and the editorial decisions on this site are made by a single lead editor working under the standards described below.
Medical Reviewer
All medical and clinical claims on CannabisDependence.org are reviewed against current peer-reviewed research, DSM-5 criteria, ICD-10/ICD-11 classification, and recognized clinical guidelines (American Society of Addiction Medicine, NIDA, SAMHSA, NIAAA). No individual physician currently serves as a named medical reviewer on staff. We say this explicitly because health-information sites sometimes imply clinical oversight that does not exist; we would rather be honest about the editorial structure than overstate it.
What this means in practice: every clinical claim on this site is verified against primary medical literature (PubMed-indexed peer-reviewed journals, the DSM-5, NIDA, SAMHSA, the FDA, and similar authorities) before publication. Pages that touch on diagnosis, withdrawal severity, medication, or treatment selection carry an explicit disclaimer that the content is educational and is not a substitute for an individual evaluation by a qualified clinician.
Readers seeking individualized medical advice should consult a qualified clinician. Nothing on this site replaces the care of a physician, addiction medicine specialist, psychiatrist, licensed therapist, or other healthcare provider qualified to evaluate your specific situation. If you are experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms, suicidal thoughts, or a medical emergency, contact 911 (U.S.), 988 (U.S. Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), or SAMHSA’s National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Editorial Standards
We do not sell cannabis products and have no commercial relationship with dispensaries, brands, or operators. We do not sell recovery products, supplements, treatment programs, courses, books, or coaching services. We do not run advertising. We do not participate in affiliate programs — including for treatment centers, telehealth platforms, supplements, or any cannabis-adjacent product.
All medical and health claims are sourced from peer-reviewed research and recognized authorities. Every clinical claim on this site is grounded in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIDA, SAMHSA, NIAAA, the FDA, the CDC, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM 2017), the DSM-5/ICD framework, and PubMed-indexed peer-reviewed journals. Where evidence is mixed or limited, we say so explicitly rather than overstating certainty.
All legal claims are sourced from official regulator publications and primary statute text. When the site references legal status (federal scheduling, DEA classification, state-level CUD diagnosis codes, ADA implications, employment-protection statutes), citations point to the underlying federal register entry, statute, or agency publication.
Content is reviewed annually or whenever a material change occurs. When new research is published that changes the evidence landscape (a major meta-analysis, an updated NIDA position, a DSM revision, a relevant FDA action), we revise the affected pages and update the “last verified” date. Pages have an annual review cycle as a backstop.
Conflicts of Interest
CannabisDependence.org accepts no money from cannabis brands, dispensaries, hemp companies, multi-state operators, treatment centers, telehealth services, supplement manufacturers, recovery-program organizations, or any state agency. We have no investors with cannabis-industry or treatment-industry holdings. We have no financial relationship with Marijuana Anonymous, SMART Recovery, or any specific treatment program — we link to those organizations as resources because they exist and serve a public need, not because we are paid or affiliated.
Our only revenue source is the broader TryCannabis.org Cannabis Education Network, which operates under the same independence standards. The network is privately owned and self-funded.
What We Do Not Do
- We do not provide diagnosis. The self-assessment tools on this site are educational; only a qualified clinician can diagnose cannabis use disorder.
- We do not provide medical advice, prescribe medication, or recommend specific treatment plans.
- We do not recommend specific treatment centers, telehealth platforms, or therapists in exchange for compensation.
- We do not generate AI content without editorial review and source verification against primary medical literature.
- We do not reproduce treatment-center marketing copy as editorial content.
- We do not exaggerate cannabis risks for shock value, and we do not minimize them to make readers comfortable. Either approach undermines trust.
Contact for Corrections
If you find a factual error on CannabisDependence.org — a misquoted statistic, an outdated diagnostic criterion, a treatment claim that is no longer supported by the current evidence, an incorrectly summarized study — please report it through our contact page. We log every correction, fix it on the affected page, and update the “last modified” timestamp so readers can see when the change was made.
Our full sourcing approach is documented on the methodology page.