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Rant & Rave
AT the start of every year, Hawaii repeats its controversy over the fireworks legislation. Time to face facts
about fireworksThat's because memories of New Year's Eve are still vivid.
In Kuliouou, residents started practicing for the new year a couple weeks ahead. On the first day of the explosions, I started wondering if Hawaii was under attack. My father thought the gunfire sounds were coming from the hunters in the mountains. But after a week of the blasts, I realized it was the overzealous fireworks enthusiasts making sure they would boom in the new year correctly.
A 1995 law made certain fireworks illegal. From my family's townhouse on the elevated side of the valley, though, I can enjoy a wonderful fireworks display -- without ever touching a firecracker -- put on by the residents of the valley.
Because this "dazzling display of civil disobedience" is so dazzling, I really didn't care whether what I was seeing was illegal or not.
A Dec. 26 editorial in another newspaper questioned Assistant Police Chief Boise Correa's remark, "This community wants to have fireworks, and any fireworks law is only as good as its level of compliance."
THE editorial stated, "We wonder, however, if Correa would subscribe to the same sentiment if 'heroin' or 'crystal methamphetamine' were substituted for the word 'fireworks'."
Although the analogy to drugs seemed harsh, I started thinking about another "drug," nicotine.
Cigarettes, like most fireworks are not illegal. Aerial fireworks are illegal and cigarettes are illegal for those under the age of 18.
Cigarettes were once thought of as "cool" because they were presented that way in movies, and on TV. Everyone smoked and looked good doing it.
Only recently -- with the onset of major health campaigns against tobacco -- did cigarettes become a no-no.
Although many people smoked, formerly smoked or had family members who were smokers, the few who cared about the health hazard they present made enough noise so that today, each pack of cigarettes is accompanied by the Surgeon General's warning that smoking "causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy."
And smokers are viewed with disdain by a nonsmoking majority.
The surgeon general's warnings might have been generally known, but put into writing , it has had a greater impact in influencing the people's minds.
Smokers weren't warned of health hazards sooner because the doctors whose warnings might have been respected were smokers themselves, and therefore, poor examples.
In the same way, Hawaii legislators are reluctant to ban fireworks because they and their families enjoy fireworks themselves.
BUT aren't they hazardous to our health? The smoke causes problems for those suffering from asthma and lung ailments. Every year there are reports of homes burning down and people losing fingers or dying from fireworks injuries.
In addition to being a fire and health hazard, fireworks also pose environmental problems. At a beach cleanup earlier this year, I noticed that the number of cigarette butts embedded in the sand were decreasing, but the piles of firecracker paper littering the beach was tremendous.
Although fireworks have been an island tradition, we have to face the facts.
Yoon Jee Kim is a junior at Roosevelt High School. Rant & Rave is a Tuesday Star-Bulletin feature
allowing those 12 to 22 to serve up fresh perspectives.
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