Pubdate: Fri, 29 Jun 2001
Source: Cranbrook Daily Townsman (CN BC)
Issue: June 29-July 6
Section: East Kootenay Weekly
Copyright: 2001 The Cranbrook Daily Townsman
Contact:  http://www.dailytownsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/723
Author: Trish Barnes

STRAIGHT AS AN ARROW

No Drinking, No Drugs, No Sex. Meet Today's Teenage Rebellion - Teens Take 
Personal Choice Seriously In The Straight Edge Movement

The X by itself, often tattooed on the arm, hand or wrist of straight edge 
kids, hearkens back to the 1980s, when Washington, D.C. punk bands played 
in bars to largely underage audiences. The kids received an X on their 
hands at the door, and were allowed into the bar. Servers knew not to serve 
them alcohol. Punk fans who were of age but chose not to drink started to 
ask for Xs as well, and a movement's symbol was born. XXX, a common 
extension of the symbol, typically marks poison or pornography, both things 
that straight edgers avoid.

The Kids Are All Righteous

"People are starting to realize the dangers of drinking, smoking, and doing 
drugs," says Matthew Barnhardt, an 18 year-old Cranbrook man who does none 
of the above. "But if you don't do drugs, you are taking the road less 
travelled."

Barnhardt is self-identified as "straight edge." Straight edge is a 
two-decade young movement that ties renunciation of vice to hardcore punk 
music. Straight edge kids cut across the grain of a peer culture rife with 
substance abuse by committing to not drink, smoke, do drugs or be 
promiscuous. They listen to music that's loaded with yelling and loud 
guitar, from bands with names like Earth Crisis, Youth of Today, Chain of 
Strength, and Teen Idles. Most of them have seen the other side, 
experimented or been addicted to substances, and have become disillusioned 
at a young age.

"I started smoking when I was 12," says Barnhardt. "By the time I was 15 I 
was smoking pot nearly everyday, whether it was at school or not.

"I'd been thinking about stopping. I was realizing how much money I was 
wasting and how pathetic my habit was. That was also about when I started 
listening to hardcore music."

Barnhardt chose the straight edge path on June 23, 2000.

"It was a huge turning point in my life," he says.

Since then, he claims to feel better physically, mentally, and spiritually. 
And he's taken his commitment further by becoming a vegan. He doesn't eat 
or wear any animal or animal-derivative products, and spends time 
meticulously researching food additives and dietary alternatives.

Although Barnhardt is one of a handful of straight edge kids in the East 
Kootenay, he is part of a worldwide subculture that's thousands strong. 
There are straight edgers in China, Yugoslavia, Africa; some associate 
themselves with religions, like those in California that are joining a 
burgeoning Orthodox Christianity movement and those who adopt Buddhism. 
Some are more politically active, monkey-wrenching vivisection facilities. 
What ties them together is the music.

Straight Path Through A Crooked World

"I'm a person just like you
But I got better things to do Than sit around and smoke dope...
...I've got the straight edge."

Ian MacKaye

When MacKaye's band Minor Threat sang those lyrics in concert in the U.S. 
back in the 1980s, they'd caught the zeitgeist of what needed to happen in 
punk music and in youth culture and they unwittingly labeled the movement 
of rebellion away from the status quo.

Says Ray Cappa of the prolific band Youth of Today: "The punk scene was no 
alternative to the regular high school scene, but the punks were into 
harder drugs -sniffing glue and smoking dust -people were dropping dead. It 
was a sad situation."

It still is a sad situation; drug use is common amongst young people, their 
parents and the world at large.

Kids today report that drug use is "normal." Even in the East Kootenay.

"If you want to smoke a joint, you can find it pretty easily at school," 
says Barnhardt, who grew up in Cranbrook.

Leaving the "normal" lifestyle behind caused some friction between he and 
his friends.

"Definitely, there was some shunning," he says. "When I first told a couple 
of friends, they said, 'Why would you do that?' I did it because I want to 
keep my mind and body as clean and pure as I could. I don't want to cloud 
myself with poisons."

A sizable contingent of straight edge kids "fall" from the lifestyle when 
they come of drinking age, but Barnhardt has no such plans. So secure he 
feels in his choices that he didn't even experience withdrawal symptoms 
when he quit smoking and drinking.

"I was set," he says. "Nothing got in my way. I just found strength in the 
music and in myself, and knowing there are other people out there living a 
positive lifestyle."

As to the promiscuity, Barnhardt says that's where the straight becomes 
blurry in the movement. It's harder to draw a line around what it means.

"Sexuality is more of a broad tenet," he says. "It's different for 
everyone. Some people say 'no sex until marriage', some say 'sex only with 
people you love' some say 'as long as you respect each other'. It depends 
on the person."

Escape From Oblivion

Youth today are faced with challenges peculiar to the age. Big business' 
promotion of oblivion, in the form of escapist video games, movies, and 
television, attempts to skewer youth culture on its fork.

Clothing labels, running shoes, and soft drinks promote the sacrifice of 
personal identity to logo affiliation. There is so much knowledge about 
what's gone wrong with the world that people are forced to choose 
consciously - escape or get involved.

Meanwhile, real youth culture creates its own subcultures: goths, preps, 
nerds, skids, jocks, skaters, edgers, that attract members due in part to 
predilection, in part to fashion. "You're going to have a label, no matter 
what," Barnhardt says. "You might as well label yourself."

Straight edge's seriousness sets it apart.

Ascetic but not necessarily spiritual, straight edge is more than a trend. 
It's got the markers of culture: shared values, dialogue, internal 
monitoring, and personal responsibility to the collective. Its shining 
beauty is that it isn't merely rebellion, of youth against youth, youth 
against cigarette and alcohol companies, youth against a substance-abusing 
society. It's commitment.

"Straight edge is basically a promise you make to yourself to never smoke, 
drink, do drugs for the rest of your life," Barnhardt says. "Drinking isn't 
rebellion anymore. Kids who drink are doing something that everyone does: 
their friends, their parents, their bosses. I don't like being apathetic 
anymore."

As the sage said, no man is free who hasn't self-control. "I am definitely 
freer now that I am free of that stuff," Barnhardt says.
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MAP posted-by: Beth