Abstract:
BACKGROUND : Diving medicine literature often regards the use of cannabis as a potential contra-indicator
for fitness to dive. With that said, there has been no empirical research done with cannabis-using divers
to examine how they subjectively understand and construct the risks that their cannabis use may have
on their diving. This study explored how cannabis-using divers rationalise the pejorative associations of
cannabis use through rhetorical techniques of neutralisation (TON) that function to deny the risks that
cannabis use may have on their diving.
MATERIALS AND METHODS : Ten medically-fit professional divers from South Africa were individually interviewed.
The interviews focussed on each diver’s reported recreational use of cannabis. The interviews were
transcribed and analysed through a framework for TON originally formulated by Sykes and Matza (1957).
RESULTS : Analysis revealed six primary TON employed to refute the pejorative associations of cannabis use
on dive work, namely: 1. Denial of responsibility: which denies a diver’s direct culpability for their cannabis
use; 2. Denial of injury: which asserts that no (serious) harm results from a diver’s cannabis use; 3. Denial
of victim: which repudiates the potentially deleterious effects that cannabis use may have on a diver;
4. Condemnation of condemners: which minimises cannabis use in relation to other divers’ unsafe diving
practices; 5. Appeal to loyalties: which situates cannabis use within interpersonal networks to whom a diver
has a “higher” allegiance; 6. Denial of penalty: which justifies cannabis use by virtue of a perceived lack
of punitive action by a Diving Medical Examiner.
CONCLUSIONS : The findings of this research highlight the TON which potentially inform a diver’s cannabis
use, particularly in relation to their diving. Identifying such TON carry important implications for the ways
in which fitness to dive is assessed.
