Editorial Standards & Ethics
The rules we write to ourselves
Standards pages are easy to write and hard to live by, so this one is specific. These are the working rules of MMJ GAZETTE, the ones an editor actually applies before an article about medical cannabis is published. They exist because this beat has three permanent hazards: science that is easy to overstate, patients who are easy to harm with careless copy, and an industry with money to spend on friendly coverage. Each hazard gets its own hard rule below. Readers who believe we have fallen short of any of them should say so at support@mmjgazette.com.
Rule one: no miracle-cure framing, ever
Medical cannabis coverage is saturated with hype in both directions, and we opt out of both. We do not publish headlines or copy that present cannabis as a cure, a breakthrough, or a wonder treatment, and we do not present it as uniquely dangerous either. Findings are stated at the strength the evidence supports and no stronger: a cell study is a cell study, a small trial is a small trial, and the words “may”, “in mice”, and “preliminary” are not hedges to be edited out but load-bearing parts of the sentence. Anecdotes, including moving patient stories, are reported as experiences, never as evidence of efficacy. The mechanics of how we grade evidence live in the fact-checking policy; the editorial rule here is simpler: if a sentence would make a desperate reader believe more than the study showed, the sentence is rewritten.
Rule two: patient privacy is respected without exception
Patients are the reason this site exists, and they are also the people with the most to lose from our coverage. Medical cannabis use is health information, and in some jurisdictions it carries legal or professional risk. So:
- We never publish a person’s medical condition, program enrollment, or cannabis use without their explicit, informed consent, and consent to talk to us is not consent to be named.
- We honor requests for anonymity from patient sources and describe them no more precisely than the story requires.
- We do not publish material from support communities or private groups as if it were on the record.
- We do not photograph or identify patients at dispensaries or clinics without consent.
- When a patient who consented later reconsiders because of legal or personal risk, we will hear the request seriously, which is a promise most publications will not make.
Rule three: money and coverage do not touch
The site earns revenue from advertising and affiliate links, disclosed in full in Ownership and Funding. The wall between that revenue and this coverage has specific bricks:
- Industry sponsorships and paid placements are always disclosed and always labeled, visually and in text, so no reader mistakes them for reporting.
- Sponsors get no say in editorial coverage: no preview, no veto, no notice, and no protection from unflattering stories. A company that advertises with us can be the subject of a critical article the same week.
- Editorial staff do not write sponsored material about companies they cover, and coverage decisions are made without reference to who advertises.
- We do not accept payment, free products, or hospitality in exchange for coverage. Review or evaluation units, if ever accepted, are disclosed in the article.
- Affiliate links never determine what we cover or how favorably; an article’s links are chosen after the copy is written, not before.
Sourcing and fairness
We source from primary documents first: journals, regulators, courts, program authorities. Claims of fact carry attribution a reader can check. People and companies criticized in our reporting are given a fair chance to respond before publication, and their response is reported. We distinguish news from analysis by labeling, and we do not publish rumor as fact at any speed. Where our reporting relies on a study, we link the study itself, not just a press release about it.
Language standards
Words shape stigma, and this beat has plenty. We use precise, neutral vocabulary: “medical cannabis” or “medical marijuana” per context, “patients” rather than loaded slang, condition-first language for the people we cover. We avoid both the vocabulary of the drug war and the vocabulary of the marketing deck. Slang appears only in quotes, when the quote matters.
Independence of the team
Editorial team members do not hold financial stakes in cannabis businesses they cover, do not accept outside payment from the industry, and disclose to the editor any personal connection that could reasonably color a story, so it can be reassigned. The publication takes no position on ballot measures or candidates; our coverage of policy is reporting, not campaigning.
When we fail
These are standards, not a claim of perfection. When we fall short, the response is governed by the corrections policy: acknowledge, fix visibly, and adjust the process that let it happen. A standards page that never met a correction it admitted to would be advertising, and this page is not advertising.
