A panel of doctors recently made a fascinating medical breakthrough (queue the sarcasm).

They agreed that surfing under the influence of drugs or alcohol are two of the prime dangers facing surfers.

Other factors discovered during Thursday’s 56th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Seattle included wave height, board length and interactions among surfers.

Pausing for a moment, it’s safe to say that doing anything under the influence of mind-altering drugs or alcohol is dangerous and it’s laughable to think it took an actual study by these sports medicine specialists to come to this conclusion.

According to James MacDonald, M.D., lead author of the surfing study, surfing’s “cool factor” also influences a surfer’s choice of sun protection, stating surfers purposely shun the most effective sunblocks containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide and risk skin cancer from exposure to ultraviolet light.

MacDonald even discovered that surfers wearing wetsuits often exhibit a telltale sunburn pattern – what he calls “the surfer’s version of a farmer tan.”

The study also found surfers are territorial and occasionally fight to protect their surf break when it becomes crowded with novices and out-of-towners.

“I was surprised at how much violence there can be in surfing culture,” MacDonald says of his findings. “Some of the injuries I’ve seen have nothing to do with surfing – they’re fisticuffs.”

I’ll pause to back my fellow surfers on this one because surfers aren’t the only ones who dislike crowds – nobody enjoys a crowd – so it’s no surprise surfers sometimes get in fights when hordes of people clog the line up, but I digress.

MacDonald even urges physicians new to treating surfers to keep in mind it’s common to surf water ski or conduct other boating sports under the influence of alcohol, marijuana or other drugs, but when the surfer is high, so is the risk of drowning.

“Whatever the risk or injury,” MacDonald continues, “surfers feel compelled to get back to the sport and often ask me to close lacerations with a liquid adhesive rather than sutures because they don’t care what kind of a scar they have – they just want to get back into the water.”

After reading this survey, it’s easy to laugh at it’s findings, but it perpetuates the typical surfer stereotypes we will probably always face.

By reading the survey, one can speculate that all surfers smoke pot or drink beer before paddling out at their local break intending to beat up all the kooks or out-of-towners, then go to the doctor with an injury suffered in the fight only to tell the doctor not to use sutures because it will keep them out of the water, thus cramping their crazy, yet cool, lifestyle.

In defense of my surfer brethren, I’d like to say that surfers are some of the nicest and most down to earth people around, sure there are a few bad apples, but isn’t that the case with the rest of society, too?

Visit www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/151697.php to read more about this study.

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