North Shore incident can’t be condoned

Sadly, not everyone on the North Shore was surprised or bothered by the recent intentional burning of a docked 30-foot boat belonging to a Haleiwa shark tour operator.

The tours — which put customers in submerged cages so they can see sharks up close — have stirred resentment by ignoring community concerns and cultural sensitivities. Questions also persist about alleged illegal feeding of sharks to attract them.

But while a lack of sympathy might be understandable, it is quite another thing for a member of a group opposed to shark tours to say that operators are "bringing it upon themselves" when one of their boats is set ablaze.

That’s irresponsible and dangerously wrong. We don’t know yet who set the fire, or why, but no one should be rationalizing or justifying a criminal act with the potential to cause deadly and indiscriminate damage. 

Prohibition of one thing gives others an opening

Who’s happy about Hawaii’s 30 percent uptick in marijuana use, a statistic issued last week by the white coats at Diagnostic Laboratory Services?

The makers of synthetic urine, at the very least. This is what people hand over in lieu of the real deal hoping to pass drug tests. A lot of these concoctions incorporate uric acid in case the lab checks for that (no, lemon Kool-Aid won’t do). And the companies themselves incorporate word-play in their names ("Urine Luck" is one such example).

Last year Tennessee lawmakers banned the sale of fake urine. Given that most of this trafficks online, it’s hard to see how that accomplished much. But if marijuana were to become legal? At least one consumer market would dry up.