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.