Would you continue to take drugs if you knew they will cause you permanent damage?

I was thinking about this this morning.
If you knew what you took will cause you permanent (and severe) brain damage when you are older, would you continue to take them?
Lets set a scenario: By the age of 55 you start to develop alzeimers, but age 65 you are completely gripped by this desease and basically incomunicative with your surrounding. Sound tough, but think about it.
We know what we do WILL cause some sort of damage in the long run, but how much none of us know.
So my question is: Would you continue to do it knowing the effects it will/would cause later on in life.
Please dont let anyone else affect your answer, I want to hear what YOU personally believe, whatever that might be.
horse
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lager lager lager lager shouting

If I knew exactly what it was doing and exactly what the long term effects would be I would be in a better position to make a more educated choice.
For example, I know that having a few drinks each week is technically doing me some harm (Although very, very minor) but is unlikely to give me any nasty desease or kill me. But if I drank a bottle of scotch per day the story would be completely different. I would have noticable brain damage, my liver and kidneys would be fucked etc.
So I guess my point is that more information gives the ability to make choices.
But saying that if I knew taking just 1 pill ever was going to gaurentee something I guess I wouldn't.
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Huh,...What,...Who,....Dude I can't here a fucken word your saying.

I know I would for one discontinue to stop if I saw hard inflaitable evidence to prove that it would cause perm brain damage etc. I like the feelings of drugs but if they were to cause perm damage, I could easily find something else to give me enjoyment. Sports etc to name one thing.. or just going out 'straight' all the time..

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He who laughs last thinks slowest."
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All warfare is based on deception. - Sun Tzu

What about these propositions:
A. I'll give you a million dollars today... but I'm going to shoot you when you're 45.
B. I'll buy you a new car today, but there's a 10 times normal chance you'll get cancer?
C. I'll give you $100 whenever you ask, up to 3 times a weekend, no more than one weekend a month... (if you do it more than once a month, I'm gonna reduce it to $50) The offer is valid for the next 50 years... but you might become a nicer person, have wonderful friends, feel good about yourself, you'll wear more colourful clothes and I'll teach you about trance.
A -- this is normal: most people spend 30 years working to earn a million dollars.
B -- this is like smoking.
C -- this is an offer I'd suggest taking.
BILL
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signature.c: assertion failed on line 200: "ran out of funny shit". Aborting... core dump.

I think i would.
Depending of course on how much damage, to which parts, and -when- the damage would come out.
Of course all these are not known, as we are, quite literally, some of the guinea pigs that will only really know the effects once they catch up to us. I do think I am looking after myself quite well tho in terms of what i can do with the knowledge available on how to minimise any damage that may occur.
I am too much of a 'here and now' thinker to worry about what may or may not happen to me 10,20,40 years down the track tho.
I am more like the Grasshopper then the Ant
HC

It depends on the positive effects that the drug may have.
For instance, I have never puffed a cig because I don't see a positive side to it.
MD,K,acid feel wicked! so I don't mind taking them, but only in moderation nowadays.
I have plenty lots of self-control, I won't try something that is dangerously addictive. IMHO md,k,acid aren't addictive. I've heard people say that they are, but I can't say I crave these substances.
In fact, I am more concerned about my caffene & nutra-sweet intake than my recreational drug intake.

To me there is no if. I already firmly belive, these chems do cause at least some level of permanant dammage to my mind and body. No question about it. The level of severity is an unknown. But its definatly there.
There are so many conditions out there that physically and mentally healthy people get when they reach older ages, we are all prone to them. Messing with the way our minds work every few weekends can only increase the risk of us developing those conditions. Again the amount of that increased risk is unknown.
It is all an unknown, so if you're even the slightest bit unsure, or think you might have tendencies towards certain conditions, perhaps drugs are not for you.
On the flipside, the amazing feelings and experiences we have all had on drugs may actually have a positive influence on our lives. I know some of the ideas i've explored on drugs, have translated into positive actions in my life.
Think and take care peoples.
LOVE
gleep

bill....once again you've excelled yourself...
in short, no. definately no. and at the moment i would only rate about a 30% chance that my drug use will cause me any long term problems. i am well aware of possible problems that are likely (family history shit and my own mental feeling) and steer away from shit that i know will push the boundaries too hard. in the event that i do have long term problems....i would say that if these problems occured to day then there is a 20% chance i would be greatly disturbed by it, and a 10% chance they oculdn't be treated with another drug...so i'll say that in 30 years, with biochem advances and the such, the 50% chance of this 20% event will prolly be 95% able to be treated by more drugs.
they're all drugs, we all realise that, don't fool yourslef, and don't let johnny fool you.
now, i'm going outside to have a dart in my new car while listening to some trance...

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...got a place for watching that will paint pictures and colour lights...
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after reading this article on dissociatives, i slowed down my dxm use... but, i can't keep away...
*thinks hard*
yes, i'd still use them. but i'd most likely slow down, stop mixing and begin some serious, life-style level harm minimisation.
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wisest is he who knows that he does not know...

Many have said that they would abstain from drug use if they had knowledge of the detrimental effects that said recreational drug use might be causing. I see little difference between having actual knowledge of potential harm and willfully blinding ones self to aforementioned potential for harm.
I think many would still indulge either way.
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So now the people who had no land have farms, things in the jungle might be uncomfortable but at least they have part of their crops and can hope for a good harvest. Their new home is likely to be on the edge of one of the big new roads such as the Trans-Amazonian Highway. It's an impressive sounding name but really its just a very long single track dirt road.
[This message has been edited by Prometheus (edited 04 October 2001).]

Lets see…. if I knew that I’d develop a severe case of brain damage and at the same time, knew I’d have an unreal life in between now and then, I guess I’d still do it. But then again, having foresight into the things that will or will not occur in the future will ultimately lead to changes being made now for the benefit of our own personal well being in the future (if that makes any sense).
I mean, what kinda life would we be living if we knew exactly what consequences we’d be faced with from our drug usage? If I knew for sure that I’d develop long-term health complications before even trying drugs, I wouldn’t have started. No way. There’d then be no such thing as ‘experimentation’. No such thing as living for the moment.

prom: I guess thats the flavour of this post. To find out whether people really care about the future, or whether the satisfaction they are getting now is enough to make up for any kind of ill-forune when we are older.
As for me? Well, it goes without saying that I think it causes enough damage to make a dent, but it doesn't mean I dont think about it everytime I go out.
oh, and bill...wtf?

Would I take drugs if I knew it did "permanent (and severe) brain damage"?
No way.

I'll raise your wtf? to a huh?
Well, there's this well-known philosophical principle for arguing about things that are difficult to compare see...
I'm not going to explain it, coz I'm too busy at work to fuck around on bluelight all afternoon, and my example is silly, coz that's the way I am... but look up Kant... I mean really do. He is the man.
BILL
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"Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable..."
And is if I wasn't going to edit out such a horrible error like that!
[This message has been edited by ~bill (edited 04 October 2001).]

"Well, there's this well-known philosophical principal for arguing about things that are difficult to compare see..."
Yep - Buy Now, Pay Later.

i think i'm kinda with apollo*
i would make it a "special occassion only" thing.
i'm only going as hard as i am now because i'm having a wicked time, and there is no real evidence of detremental effects. Although... i know i'm doing some damage.
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"more, give me more" screams the bulb whore

Well - I noticed you said not to let other people's statements influence your answer, so I'm writing this before reading all the other replies. Ok - like you said, I think it's reasonable to assume that regular (read: monthly) use of MDMA/amphets/etc is going to lead to problems later in life, but what we don't know is how serious/crippling those problems may turn out to be.
Personally, I know the risks I take, but for whatever reason (stupidity, denial, the fact that the last couple of years of my life have just been so much fun .. whatever) I continue to do it. However - and please don't take this to imply that I think I'm somehow invincible - I've gone through a lot of extremely hardcore, life-threatening shit in the past 5 years, to the degree that by all scientific logic, you're reading something written by someone who's already dead. I'm not going to go into the gory details of all of the stories, but to make my point I'll quickly explain the most bizarre of them.
About 2.5 years ago, I suffered an intense episode of depression/very bad anxiety. (This was before I officially became a "raver", so it wasn't overuse of rave chems that caused the problem). After about 4 months of unbearable feelings/thinking (imagine the best pill you've ever had, turn it around so that instead of everything feeling & being positive/cheerful/full of love, everything about yourself/the world/life is totally fucked. Any attempt to think something positive is torn down and made negative - much the same as when you're pilling, you can shrug off bad/negative situations fairly easily). This feeling went on for months - I literally couldn't eat more often than once or twice a week, slept for maybe an hour every second night if I was lucky, etc. (I went down to 47 kilos [I'm 5'9] from the stress). There was _no way_ of escaping from the feeling, and no amount of treatment (meds/therapy etc) made any improvement.
I eventually came to the conclusion that there was only one way out, and overdosed on Epilem (sodium valproate). Now, if you look up the toxicity of this shit on the web, it's stated that someone who "luckily" survived an o/d on it took a "massive overdose", which was 8 grams (16 tablets). I (no shit) took 49 grams (98 tablets). It is _impossible_ to survive doing that to yourself, but after dying physically (no pulse/etc), I somehow (!) pulled through, and after 3 days in a coma, regained consciousness. At the time, I was so shocked to be conscious/feeling shit again that I literally believed that I'd died (because I knew what I did was foolproof) and that therefore I was now in hell. .. Needless to say, I was pretty fucking miserable for a while after this.. but in the end I (some would say stupidly) re-discovered raving, and the combination of drugs/amazing friends/the revelation that the fact I was alive at all was literally a miracle etc actually pulled me out of the shit I was in.
Now, like I said, I could write a lot more, because that's one of three "should be dead but I'm not" things that have happened to me.
[EDIT: Ok, fuckit, just to give some more merit to my "something bigger is helping me" theory, here's the other story.. it's gonna make this message huge, but fuckit.
Around Jan '96, I was dumb enough to get really pissed and hop in my car. I got caught (thankfully) and blew 0.139% on P-plates. This doesn't go down well with the law, so I lost my licence for 13 months. Anyway, there's a 3-4 week grace period after the offence before you lose the licence. Being the fucking idiot that I was back then, a few nights later I got shitfaced and drove again. I didn't get caught, but what happened was just outright fucking strange.
All I remember is getting drunk the night before, then waking up the next day with the hangover from hell and seat-belt shaped bruises on my chest. Needless to say, I shat myself.. went outside to see whether my car was even here, or whether the cops were waiting to arrest me etc. My car _was_ there - in the driveway (which is f'n hard to get into even sober) with both of the left hand tyres _shredded_ (molten rubber sprayed across the doors etc) .. I dunno what the fuck I managed to do to do that to the car, or how I got it home on rims and back in the driveway drunk.
That's weird enough.. but anyway, I took the wheels off, hid them in a park, and bullshitted my parents that someone had ganked my wheels. Eventually they clued on that there was damage to the undercarriage, and that therefore I'd driven it and was talking shit. I figured if I told _no-one_ the truth, I'd be safe, so I told them that "all I remember is going to bed and waking up with bruises, then this had happened - I SWEAR I wasn't drinking/on drugs!" ...
So, they told me to go see a doctor - span him the same story, so he sent me to a neurologist. Span _him_ the same story, so he said he'd take an EEG and a CAT scan just to check for epilepsy etc. Went back for the results a few weeks later, and was told that I had a non-malignant tumour which would most likely burst and kill me before I turned 30 if it wasn't removed. Considering that I knew that I'd made all this shit up, I was a little shocked! So, anyway, I had it removed ("alcohol saved my life!" - good book title, yeah? ), and that's one of the other "survival against the odds" stories. There's another one, but this message is long enough already ... anyhow, back onto the original argument.. [/EDIT]
So, to get back to the topic here, I guess I feel that there's "something" looking out for me these days, and hope (not know!) that I'm not going to end up a psychotic mess when I'm older after doing what we do these days.
I'm well aware that the response of a lot of people would be "dude, if that's happened, why the FUCK do you even go near drugs now?!", which has merit. All I can say to that that if it _wasn't_ for things like MDMA (ie psychiatric medication did/has done fuck all to help me, ever), then I'd still be as fucked as I was back then. I know that it'd take something pretty fucking intense to even hold a candle to how fucked I felt a few years ago, so I guess I have less fear of potential long-term party drug effects than I otherwise would. Besides that, I just leave things in the hands of the universe now, because it seems to have a knack of doing for me what I can't do for myself.
(btw, sorry about the rather morbid message.. I'm actually generally a pretty positive/friendly/fun to be around [well, maybe not on tuesdays ] person these days.. just wanted to explain why I do what I do these days, I guess.
[ends sermon]
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Today a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration... that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively - there's no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves.. here's Tom with the weather!
[This message has been edited by lsd303 (edited 04 October 2001).]
[This message has been edited by lsd303 (edited 04 October 2001).]

i like that post^^^
i know theres a tendency not to read long posts with most people, but seriously, go back and read that...its changed my perceptions of a few things...

lsd: thanks for whats probably the best post ive read this year

Nice story glad you pulled through.
I spose I'd need so see something hard like someone who is fucked up from drug taking, and the like, from when they were yonger. It would probably take more than that to convince me as well, although it would certainly make me think a lot more than I do now. *shrug*
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Feel The Rhythm.