STUDY CITES HEART ATTACK PERIL FOR OLDER MARIJUANA USERS

5-Fold Risk Seen For Baby Boomers.

Their children rebelled and became stockbrokers. The pharmaceutical
industry views them as a massive market for drugs to fight hair loss
and impotence. Now, age is bringing baby boomers yet another indignity:

Smoking a joint may increase the chance of a heart attack, especially
in someone already at risk, according to a study by Boston researchers
published today in the journal Circulation.

For the first hour after smoking marijuana, a period longer than some
highs, a person's risk of a heart attack is five times greater than
usual, the study declared, adding marijuana use to a growing list of
pleasures that may trigger heart attacks, including sex and big meals.

For the largest group of marijuana users, those between 18 and 25
years old, the risk doesn't mean much, said Dr. Murray Mittleman, an
epidemiologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and one of the
study's authors.

''A 20-year-old has a baseline risk of heart attack that's close to
zero, so five times something very close to zero is still very close
to zero,'' he said. Nor does marijuana pose a significant increased
risk for a healthy 50-year-old.

But for older people with conditions that make them prone to heart
attacks, such as coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, or
diabetes, Mittleman said, ''the fivefold increase in risk may pose
enough of a problem that should make them pause and think.''

The increased risk, though still small, could prove significant as the
population bulge of the baby boomers moves into the age group most at
risk for heart attacks, Mittleman said. Surveys suggest Bill Clinton's
generation is still inhaling: As the youths of the 1960s age,
marijuana use increases among older adults.

Mittleman's results hold no victory for drug warriors, or for pot
enthusiasts.

''It's still an unanswered question as to whether there is a long term
risk'' in smoking marijuana, he said. ''There's no strong evidence
that there is a risk, but I think we need more research to have a
definitive answer.''

Mittleman and his colleagues did not look at whether marijuana users
are more likely to have heart attacks than the general population.
Rather, their work was part of an ongoing investigation that looks at
what can trigger a heart attack in a particular individual at a
particular time.

Researchers surveyed 3,882 heart attack survivors, 124 of whom said
they had smoked marijuana in the previous year. Of them, 37 reported
smoking it in the 24 hours preceding their heart attack; nine in the
preceding hour. Of those nine, three had also had sex or used cocaine,
a drug that increases the risk much more sharply, by a factor of 24.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law, a group
that favors legalization, called the study's numbers ''tiny'' and
pointed out that the increased risk from smoking a joint was
equivalent to the risk of vigorous exercise for an average person, or
of sex for a person with heart disease.

''When it was first reported of course it was kind of scary,'' said
organization spokesman Keith Stroup. ''We got all these calls from
people saying, `I've been smoking marijuana all my life. You mean I'm
really going to have to give it up?' Well, if you're willing to give
up sex you should give up marijuana, too. But I don't think I'd be
giving up either one of them if I were you.''