Death of Student

Re “ ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean Harmless,” April 19, about the death of Rosanna Porras.

What would make a “15-year-old class president, soccer and volleyball player with a 3.7 grade-point average and passions for drawing and reading” want to be faster, better and more wide-awake than she already is? The answer: a society that values quantity of stuff over quality of life.

In consumerist America, more is always better.

I recently spent time cleaning other people’s homes. What I found in many of them is an enormity of stuff--rooms filled with toys to the ceilings, counters, shelves and dressers covered with trinkets and ruffles, garages stuffed with things not used and parents working dawn to dusk to buy more things.

I have spent the past five years of my life attempting to clear my life of things in order to live more in the moment and to use my time to help others and conserve our valuable resources and not litter our Mother Earth with garbage.

When our values return to sustainable living and quality of life for everyone in our community, then we won’t have to worry about our children experimenting with dangerous substances in hopes that it will make their lives more livable.

The solution requires each of us looking into our individual hearts to transform ourselves so that we no longer contribute to the environment of waste and greed, which is destroying us and which helped to kill Rosanna Porras.

JUDY TALLEY, Ventura