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Higher systolic blood pressures were found among similar age groups measured in 1962 compared to those found in 1950 in the Los Angeles Heart Study. Analyses were performed to insure that these differences were real and not due to measurement differences or to self selection. Covariance analyses indicated that higher blood pressures occurred among subjects who reported that they had not eaten for 2 hr or more or for 5 hr or more prior to examination as well as among non-smokers, alcohol users, and non-salt adders. The magnitude of the differences associated with these factors is probably not of clinical significance. None of these factors explain the existing differences in blood pressures between these two examination periods. Thus, the differences observed are consistent with the hypothesis of a healthier population, age for age, entering the study in 1950 compared to the survivors examined in 1962.

The purpose of this analysis was to contrast the attitudes and patterns of drug use among marijuana and alcohol users and non-users at the University of South Carolina. More specifically, the incidence of drug use, the time of initial drug use, and the motivations for various types of use have been analyzed in this study.

Basic sociocultural changes are often reflected in changing drinking patterns. Data from rural Uganda suggests that with increasing acculturation, there is a trend toward informal drinking behavior, a preference for modern beverages, and the elaboration of drinking settings. Modern settings appear to provide important opportunities for access to the national culture. Results indicate that the marginal population, not the least or most acculturated, are the heaviest alcohol users. An application of item-analysis to acculturation scale construction and suggestions for further research are also presented.

To the Editor.— Readers of your recent editorial on a possible alcohol benefit to geriatric patients (226:779, 1973) or of the recent abstract on a possible protective effect of alcohol on a myocardial infarction ( Circulation 48 [suppl 4]:94, 1973) may be interested in the following data from the Miami Sudden Cardiac Death Study. In a series of 118 consecutive casesof sudden cardiac death, retrospective interviews identified 40 patients as "substantial" or "heavy" alcohol users and 78 patients as drinking little or no alcoholic beverages regularly. In all 118, autopsies were performed under identical protocol by the Chief Medical Examiner for Dade County, Fla, or by deputies under his supervision. The two groups (users and nonusers) were then compared for the presence of chronic coronary artery stenosis (Table 1) and for the presence of acute heart vessel or muscle damage (Table 2). Although the numbers in each cell are not

In this paper we propose to consider to what extent the use of alcohol affects the course of lobar pneumonia. The influence of alcohol on longevity has been the subject of extensive studies in recent years by the insurance companies. These companies do not, of course, accept persons who admit the excessive use of liquor, and their comparisons, therefore, are between abstainers and moderate users. Dr. Rogers of the New York Life shows that in several large companies the mortality runs 32 per cent. higher in the group of moderate alcohol users than in the group of abstainers. The statistics of the Midwestern Mutual show that if abstainers are rated at 100 per cent., the mortality of moderate or occasional users of alcohol is 119 per cent.; that of daily users of beer is 133 per cent.; that of daily users of spirits is 166 per cent. The New England