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Show 0PA CHANGES ' RULING ON FOOD STAMPS Stamps Good Only For Four Months After Validation; Sugar Ration Being Reduced The OPA announces that all food stamps henceforth will be canceled four months after validation, vali-dation, giving housewives only 16 weeks in which to use them. The order m,akes it impossible for consumers to save large numbers num-bers of stamps for future use. Red tokens are not affected. The agency also ordered a slight reduction in sugar rations. Sugar stamps, heretofore validated every two and one-half months now will become good at the rate of one every three months. In line with the new directive, OPA announced that sugar stamp 35 in ration book four will be good for five pounds beginning Feb. 1 and ending June 2. Stamp 34, hitherto good indefinitely, will be canceled Feb. 28. Another sugar stamp is expected ex-pected to become good May 1, OPA said, but stamp 35 must last about two weeks longer than stamp 34, which has been good since Nov. 16. The OPA formerly used the system of canceling food stamps after specific intervals, but discontinued dis-continued it last -spring. It was revived to eliminate backlogs of unused stamps and to lessen the chance of consumer buying rushes. rush-es. In December, many consumers consum-ers had saved stamps for yearend holiday buying and were incensed when OPA canceled them without advance notice because of reduced supplies. The new system is also expected to cut down on the use of counterfeit counter-feit stamps. Price Administrator Chester Bowles has appealed to housewives to watch carefully for bogus coupons, reporting that 50,000,000 were seized in Chicago recently, enough to buy all the civilian beef in the country. Under the new plan, the first blue and red stamps to expire will be those that became valid Dec. 1 and 3. They will be worthless after af-ter March 31. |