As a teenager I could manage a couple of days with no sleep and it felt fun and weird, but these days, I'm severely grumpy if I miss any sleep - so I simply choose not to do that anymore!
Now, I try and deal with many health problems rather than create more.
I did read an interesting thing recently about forced lack of sleep contributing towards diabetes symptoms. How weird is that? Can't see how it can be true...
I find it a little humorous how authoritative people seem with the percieved effects of drugs on the human body.
*Even* the optimist could honestly say that drugs are at best a poke in the dark to "heal" a symptom. No one can reasonably predict the long term effects of foreign substances given how complex our biology is...