[ OUR OPINION ]
Surfing a good fit in
high school lineupLONG-AWAITED approval of surfing as a sanctioned sport puts the boards in the water, but advocates have a lot more paddling ahead before public high school students can catch a wave in competitions.
THE ISSUE
The Board of Education has given the sport that originated in the islands its approval.
Education officials will have to work out rules about safety and liability, and hunt up ways to fund activities. If students want a surf team, they will have to lobby their schools' leaders since the Board of Education is allowing each school to decide individually whether to field a team. The board also left it up to interscholastic leagues, whose interests focus on traditional sports like football and who have not embraced surfing, to choose whether to participate.
Estimated to be as high as $2.6 million a season if all high schools participate, the cost seems overwhelming, but help may come from volunteers and corporate sponsors who would be inclined to put their stamp on a sporting culture that appeals to their market group.
The Oahu Interscholastic Association, affiliated with public schools, should welcome surf competitions since its goals are "to stress educational and cultural values, promote skills in competitive activities and foster sportsmanship and mutual respect." OIA's primary concerns are about liability. However, since it has managed to clear away such problems for full-contact games like football and wrestling, it should be able to do the same for surfing. In addition, surfing's origination in Hawaii should place it high on the "cultural value" chart.
About a dozen schools already have surf clubs, but have been unable to compete using their school names or mascots at meets. For years, surfing supporters sought the board's consent, finally succeeding last week.
School officials worried that surfing is too dangerous because of unpredictable ocean conditions. Surfing clearly has risks, but as in other sports, students are capable of learning skills to avoid danger.
Students also will learn about the ocean environment, another opportunity for education outside the classroom. Surfing will open another door to teenagers who may not participate in the usual high school activities and to those whose abilities do not fit typical recreation forms. The physical and mental challenges of surfing offer another option.
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FDA should regulate
tobacco productsLANDMARK legislation that would authorize the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products has been introduced in Congress, and its enactment is likely. Previous attempts have been rejected, but the new bill not only has bipartisan sponsorship in Congress but is supported by antismoking groups, tobacco farmers and tobacco giant Philip Morris U.S.A. It should be approved without delay.
THE ISSUE
Federal legislation to allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products is receiving broad support.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that FDA has no authority over tobacco companies. The legislation, sponsored Sens. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., would not allow the FDA to ban cigarettes, but it could reduce nicotine in them and regulate them in other ways. For example, it could prohibit marketing terms such as "light" and "ultra-light" without its approval and ban the use of harmful additives such as arsenic, ammonia and formaldehyde.
The bill has broad support because it includes a provision that would pay tobacco farmers to exit a federal system that sets price and production control. Farmers have complained in recent years about severe restrictions on the amount of tobacco they can sell.
Philip Morris said it supports the bill partly because it would allow the FDA to "consider whether a new performance standard would significantly increase the demand for contraband cigarettes. We believe this is an important consideration in order to prevent the unintended consequences of black market cigarettes."
The black market is a problem in Hawaii because retailers are not required to have permits for selling tobacco products. This year's Legislature failed to enact an important bill that would have required them to have permits.
"This is a strong bill that has the potential to save literally tens of millions of lives," said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids. His description of its supporters as "an odd bedfellow coalition" is an understatement.
Public health organizations estimate that tobacco kills more than 400,000 Americans a year and costs the country $75 billion in health care bills. In Hawaii, they estimate that it kills more than 1,100 people a year and costs more than $328 million in health care and associated costs.
