"When I first heard about Anna Wood my blood went cold and I had an overwhelming feeling that I had somehow been responsible for this tragedy. I have known for a long time, it seems, what other children have not had the good fortune to know. That drugs, one way or another, kill! By kill I don't exactly just mean one's mortality. I mean one's initiative, one's ambitions and dreams, and most importantly, one's mind.
I was brought up believing my mind was my only weapon against mediocrity (a state or level of life abhorrent to me). With all faculties intact I could reach into my imagination and draw inspiration for life. You need to be inspired to live because life is hard! Drugs do not make it easier. For every syntheticglimpse of nirvana you have, you lose from your natural resources.
...
But now I have to speak out for Anna and for my friends who are daily struggling with paranoia, fear and addiction, and who may be dancing dangerously in some carefully contrived illusion that it's okay to experiment, it's only normal, it can't hurt you.
I don't believe that propagating safe usage of drugs is the solution. Apart from this being naive, it's promoting the idea that one can use drugs sensibly.
...
Their main purpose is to alter and disturb the natural perception of the mind."
- Anna's Story: the facts, the fury, the future
By Bronwyn Donaghy, published in 1996 by HarperCollinsPublishing
I read this book forever ago. She died on like Nicks street. justbytheway.
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