Question: if you had to take drugs to live your life - eg prolong it if you had cancer but you were doing it illegally would you?- if no would you do if it was legal but had effects of class a drugs? i would NEVER take drugs no matter what i'd take medical drugs e.g small dose of oparecetomal to take the pain away but not drug drugs like canabis - NEVER!!!

Suzi Gage answered on 22 Jun 2011:

Hi @drstiles
This is a really good question!

Some strong painkillers are very similar to heroin, if you had really bad pain would you not take these? It’s hard to know what you’d do until you were in a situation where you were very ill.

I think I would follow the advice of my doctor with regards to what drugs I took. If he recommended me an illegal drug that would prolong my life slightly I would probably take it.

You say that you would never take drugs, does that mean you would never drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes? These, although legal, are quite harmful drugs. In fact some evidence suggests they are more harmful than some illegal drugs.

I think your anti drugs stance is very good by the way. There is a culture in UK and indeed lots of the Western world to take too many drugs – for example we are becoming immune to antibiotics because people take them so much, when in fact they often don’t do that much good! Also people only take half their prescribed dose until they start feeling better, which also makes them less effective next time.

thanks for the question, it’s a great one!