A DOWNER FOR AGING MARIJUANA USERS

At Risk

Smoking marijuana significantly increases the risk of head and neck
cancers, according to a new study, which also predicts more cases as baby
boomers age. The researchers, led by Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang, a professor of
epidemiology at the Jonsson Cancer Center at the University of California
at Los Angeles, found that marijuana was almost as damaging as tobacco in
terms of respiratory tract cancer, despite the fact that the drug was
generally regarded as safer.

The study, published last week in the journal Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers and Prevention, compared the use of marijuana, tobacco and
alcohol by 173 patients suffering from head or neck cancers to the habits
of a control group of 176 cancer-free patients.

Dr. Zhang said that marijuana users faced 2.5 times the risk of cancer as
nonusers. Tobacco increased the risk 3.5 times, he said, and people who
smoked both tobacco and marijuana raised their risk 36 times. A larger
study now under way,is needed to confirm the results, he said.

Meanwhile, he said that people who smoked marijuana in their youth should
have regular examinations for the early warning signs of throat, tongue or
other cancers. "If you consider the latency time, about 30 years, we could
well have an increase in the next 5 or 10 years," he said. "But many of
these cancers are easy to treat if they are caught early."