On the Ropes

A former lightweight and welterweight champion of the world, an exmarine, was hanging on the ropes last weelt.

On Guadalcanal in 1942, Barney Ross got the Silver Star and a reputation as a Jap killer. He also got malaria. Brought home to the wartime U.S., he allowed his name and his medal to be exploited from coast to coast. Then he dropped out of sight. The next news of Barney Ross was when his showgirl war bride divorced him two months ago.

Last week Barney, 37 and greying, turned up in the United States Attorney's office in Manhattan to report himself a drug addict. It started, said he, when he was in a Guadalcanal hospital, with shock and malaria. A couple of his hospital corpsmen friends had given him dope (not part of the services' regular malaria therapy, but a rare resort in cases of extreme migraine). As months went by, his headaches recurred; somehow (perhaps with forged prescriptions), Barney got more dope. Says he: "I got in over my head."

Technically charged with possessing narcotics, but not under arrest, Ross will go to the U.S. Public Health Service hospital for drug addicts, in Lexington, Ky. The hospital was established a decade ago to end the old policy of throwing addicts in jail like criminals. Of the 792 narcotic patients now at Lexington, 650 are under prison sentence for narcotics-law violations, 42 are on probation, 100 are volunteers (like Ross).

Two-Part Cure. The Lexington cure is two-part: 1) withdrawal of the drug, accomplished in three days, during which the patient's agony is mitigated by less harmful dope; 2) the psychological phase --finding out what caused the patient to go on the hop, and removing the cause. If phase No. 2 is not successfully completed, relapse is almost certain (29% of Lexington's present patients are repeaters). Volunteers may leave whenever they choose, but are told that if they leave before six months, they have wasted their time.

How many other ex-combat men with malaria or other recurring tropical diseases have gone the way of Ross? "Not many," says Narcotics Commissioner H. J. Anslinger. Chief reason: a shortage of dope. War cut off the supply of contraband drugs to the U.S., and much of the obtainable dope is so watered down that it will not support a habit. Latest U.S. addiction figures: one person per 3,000--one-third as high as after World War I.

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