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

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... isks 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. (Int Marit Health 2019; 70, 2: 88-94)