HE TAUGHT YOUTH ABOUT DANGERS OF DRUGS

Outspoken Salem Pharmacist Dead At 73

Wallace S. Klein Jr. believed drug offenders should be treated instead
of severely punished.

Wallace S. Klein Jr., a Salem pharmacist who lamented America's casual
attitude toward drugs in the 1960s but urged treatment rather than
harsh punishment for drug users, died Thursday. He was 73.

Klein, who owned and operated Langhorne Pharmacy in Salem for many
years, lectured young people throughout Virginia on the dangers of
marijuana, heroin, LSD and other popular drugs of the late 1960s and
early 1970 s.

"Street pharmacy has been a reality with many scars and tragedies,"
Klein once wrote on The Roanoke Times ' editorial page. "Kids are
gulping down, smoking, sniffing or shooting almost anything they come
across."

He advocated legislation to make marijuana possession a misdemeanor
instead of a felony and to leave sentencing to judges' discretion. "We
must do something for the drug-dependent individual other than
incriminating him," Klein said in 1969. The state should find "some
way for the courts to provide a drug user with treatment."

He also attacked most TV advertising for sleeping pills, aspirin and
other drug-related products as erroneous or misleading.

Klein, who was director of the Roanoke Area and Virginia Drug Abuse
Control Councils, received many accolades for his anti-drug efforts.

He received rewards from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
Salem-Roanoke County Chamber of Commerce, the Salem Merchants
Association, the Salem Jaycees and the Freedoms Foundation at Valley
Forge.

He was chairman of the Salem-Roanoke County Hospital Committee and the
Virginia Board of Pharmacy. He was a member of the American
Pharmaceutical Association's general academy board and past president
of the Virginia Pharmaceutical Association and the Roanoke Valley
Pharmaceutical Association. He was a member of the Virginia Health
Regulatory Boards Commission

He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a Mason
and was active in the First United Methodist Church, the Boy Scouts
and the Parent-Teacher Association.

Klein, who graduated from the Medical College of Virginia, remained
active after retirement. He was the secretary of the Lewis-Gale
Foundation when he died.