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US Apathetic Too Long Toward Narcotics ThreatDeath of an attractive, talented young woman in Hollywood earlier this month served as a fresh reminder to the American people of the diabolical threat of narcotics traffic to the health and morals of the nation.This girl. Barbara Burns, really deserves no more pity than the thousands of other souls which are tormented each year by drug addiction. But because of the notoriety of her cause (she is the wayward daughter of the late comedian, Bob Burns), it is easier to generate interest with regard to her tragedy than for the so-called “nobodies” who also die wretched deaths due to dope.Were the American people sufficiently aroused against the human leeches who live off the narcotics traffic, we don’t believe this problem would have grown to its present proportions.In too many states and in too many cities, narcotics offenses are treated with less severity than are crimes of far less evil overtones. In Texas, stiffer state laws have started a trend toward rougher treatment of dope pushers. But more stringent Texas statutes may vet have tobe passed.Barbara Burns took her own life because she was “Hopelessly hooked’ This is symptomatic of the manner in which drug addiction twists the last bit of sc If-respect and hope from its victims. It is not a swift process, as in death by a bullet. It is a living death. Whileabullet may be fired in a fit of anger, the dope peddler must stealthily pre-conceive the means of ensnaring new victims and building up their appetites for his wares. Murderer is a mild definition for the narcotics merchant.Shortly before her suicide, 13 a rba ra Bur n s asked a new spaper reporter to warn young people about how easy it is to. start down the road to addiction, and how difficult it is to turn back. She started out on the “mild” drugs, supposedly to “lose some baby fat, By the very nature of the narcotics threat, there should be no differentiation between enforcement and penalties against criminals who peddle “goof balls” and those who traffic in deadly heroin. Hardly anybody plans to become a dope addict; it is the criminal vendors of narcotics who lay the plans.
Newspaper Details
Arlington Daily News Texan
Arlington, Texas, US
Fri, Jan 12, 1962
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
David A.
USA 09 May 2025
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