It matters. The correlation between what goes in and what comes out.

Mom said, “he’s been really quite good the past four days…”

The math matters. Get high, and the way life comes out was altered. For me, it was off track and then one day at a time it stayed that way.

Study finds half of men arrested test positive for drugs

Not only do the findings show “a clear link between drugs and crime,” they also highlight the need to provide drug treatment, says Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which will make the data public Thursday.

Assessing offenders for drug and mental health problems and providing treatment is “important if you want to stop recidivism and recycling people through the system,” says Kerlikowske, who supports drug courts that offer court-ordered drug treatment.

“There’s an opportunity when someone is arrested to divert them to treatment if they need it,” says Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance Network, a group that supports legalizing marijuana and treating drug use as a public health issue. “But people shouldn’t have to get arrested to get treatment.”

In 2008 researchers interviewed and obtained urine samples from 3,924 men arrested in 10 metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New York, Portland, Ore., Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

In Chicago, 87% tested positive for drug use and in Sacramento, 78% tested positive. Many of the men — 40% in Chicago and 29% in Sacramento — tested positive for more than one drug.

Marijuana is the most common drug in every city where testing was done except Atlanta, where cocaine is most prevalent, the study found.

Methamphetamine use is concentrated on the west coast where 35% of the men arrested in Sacramento and 15% of the men arrested in Portland tested positive for the drug.

Heroin use is highest, at 29%, among men arrested in Chicago, an increase from 20% in 2007. Heroin use among arrestees declined in Portland, from 12% in 2007 to 8% in 2008.

Positive drug tests declined since 2007 among men arrested in Atlanta, Portland and Washington, the study found. Some of that decline can be attributed to law changes, Kerlikowske says.

Portland passed laws restricting access to ingredients needed to make methamphetamine, Kerlikowske says.

Cities and states need more resources for drug treatment, says Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, which advocates for alternatives to incarceration.

“If you just want drug treatment, in some places you are better off getting arrested and going to drug court,” Mauer says.

“The federal resources that have gone into the drug war have been heavily oriented toward police and incarceration rather than treatment. We need to shift that use of resources,” he says.

Revisions on my book manuscript for HOW TO CHANGE SOMEONE YOU LOVE are finished up and heading back to my publisher today. It’s been a wonderful process of turning the thing in, getting comments then incorporating thos back in to the text. Like taking your beloved child out for the first time to school and she gets to come home with new knowledge from “out there.”

In this case, out there is just over at Fifth Avenue & 23rd Street at St. Martin’s Press – right in the Flatiron Building. So my editor Jennifer Enderlin poured over HTCSYL and chimed in. It’s a cool process.

Onward!

- Brad

Here’s to new chapters, and downsizing.

I’m embracing the change, and fixing to simplify. No need for so much stuff. The pieces I love in my life: family, friends, pooches, music, books & service. So there it is. My life in a nutshell.

The stuff insulates, but no longer resonates.

Life is good. Change begins!

There was this guy. Runs down the 1Train platform as I’m getting off. Runs in to me. I stagger backward, and drop my coffee mug. “Watch where you’re going!” he bellows at me, sweaty and red-faced and hurrying hurrying.

Watch where I’m going? Cue smile.

Ok. Breathe, Brad.

Look down, and there’s his wallet. His drivers license is in the see through plastic panel. He’s looking right at me. He’s not smiling in this picture either. I pick it up. Credit cards, cash poking out.

Train delayed. Doors reopen. “The uptown 1Train has been delayed…” comes out broken over the subway loudspeakers.

“Hey buddy,” I say, walking toward the open door. He steps back, expecting conflict.

Life is good. Funny, right? Lead with love. Can’t screw this up.

x, Brad

George Fox (July 1624 – 13 January 1691) was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.

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Although he looked a bit like my Aunt Marge, Fox was a radical in all the right ways.

I grew up in a Quaker home, so Fox is a figure that stands close to home. His vivid journey was one that said – go with God (he’s right where you are) and in some ways proved a potent precurser to the New Thought movement. Fox’s suggestion that God was available to all, without a church or institution attached made him an outcast in many circles. Imprisoned for a year for his “radical” thinking, Fox spent a the last decade of his life helping and serving and providing for his work to outlast him.

His mission was simple – let go of the outward stuff, the rituals, the things, the trappings, and focus instead on the content of your spirit and the welfare of others.

In the late 1600’s the Friends movement shocked most by their show of equality for women. Females shared the truth of life, love and communion with spiritual things alongside their male counterparts. “God is in all of us – why shouldn’t we, every last one, raise a voice above a whisper!”

Embracing the simple life, Fox spoke out against tithing. Amazing! He worked for social justice, and fought for the rights of all on a planet ripe with division. The movement he inspired would go on to be a powerful force in the march for social justice and was keenly involved in the Underground Railroad – where black slaves from the south were smuggled to the free north.

So George Fox begins my writings on THOSE I ADMIRE (thanks Brian Collins, for suggesting this path!).  Here we go!

- Brad

The deal is this – it’s not metabolism or genes. It’s the food we put in our bodies that make them swell and hurt and grow beyond what they are intended. From the headlines today, the not-so-shocking claim that one in five preschoolers are obese.

We see them on the street, at the store, in our own home. It’s not the food – but it’s the food.

Huh!?

We confuse our wants with needs, then over time these become cravings answered as a matter of habit. We are dying to eat.

So here is the wake up call to every parent, caregiver, aunt, uncle, brother or sister – the answer starts with you. I call you to share and model how to eat, how to move, how to live in relationship with food rather than being enslaved by it.

You are the change you seek.

Talk it out and be in relation with one another instead of in relation to food. Listen for that tiny bell that signals FULL. Let your conversation expand; allow your love and care be a balm to living. A thing that fills you up on the inside that doesn’t expand your outside.

- Brad

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20% of U.S. preschoolers are obese

Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age.

Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests. Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.

“The magnitude of these differences was larger than we expected, and it is surprising to see differences by racial groups present so early in childhood,” said Sarah Anderson, an Ohio State University public health researcher. She conducted the research with Temple University’s Dr. Robert Whitaker.

FDA Cracks Down on Unapproved Painkillers

(WASHINGTON) — The government ordered 14 unapproved narcotic painkillers off the market Tuesday, prescription versions of potent morphine, hydromorphone and oxycodone. The Food and Drug Administration told nine manufacturers to quit distributing the drugs within 90 days — but insisted there are plenty of legal versions of the painkillers being sold for patients who need relief.

“There will be no shortage for consumers,” said Deborah Autor, director of FDA’s drug compliance office.

The move is part of the FDA’s years-long attempt to weed out thousands of prescription drugs that sell despite never being formally approved by the health regulatory agency. Many entered the market decades ago, before federal law required such approval. The FDA estimates that unapproved drugs account for 2 percent of all prescriptions filled. (See the most common hospital mishaps.)

Tuesday, the FDA targeted unapproved versions of high-concentrate liquid morphine sulfate and unapproved immediate-release tablets containing morphine sulfate, hydromorphone and oxycodone. Most are generic.

To help consumers tell if they have an approved or unapproved version, the FDA posted both lists on its Web site: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/unapproved_drugs/narcoticsQA.htm.

Even FDA-approved versions of these painkillers pose a risk of serious side effects, but the unapproved products add an extra problem: Regulators haven’t checked that those versions work as well and are as pure as their approved competitors.

Companies that don’t heed the FDA’s deadline could face big penalties: The government once seized $24 million worth of unapproved drugs from a company that ignored a stop-selling order, Autor noted.

Thanks for the photo, Phil. It’s amazing, along with the others you sent of DC in the grip of a full-fledged invitation to spring.

Here in Dallas, Texas. Twang, twang! A beautiful day here, at the airport to get back on a plane soon for work. Looking forward to the weekend already, and it’s only Tuesdee.

My dear friend, and mentor Dee Owens is flying in from Illinois to spend the weekend in the city just as springtime begins to POP.

The book is getting polished and finished up in good shape. I am grateful it found a good home at St. Martin’s Press. Soon, it’ll get turned in to my editor and it will begin taking on a new shape as a BOOK! From the pages, a book will spring.

Pretty cool.

Working with an aritist I really admire, Paul Sahre, on the cover art for said book. Just what will HOW TO CHANGE SOMEONE YOU LOVE look on the shelf? Excellent question. Excellent question indeed.

In a couple weeks we’ll be that much closer to that answer.

Gathering quotes from folks who’ve been supportive of my work has put me in the position of asking for something – a role I am not entirely comfortable in. Good practice though. I am open to being here, asking for help from friends and fans, and ready to touch lives through my work as words on a page.

Reading something from my childhood today. A series I started back in 1981, continues today in a way and I’m enjoying revisiting that world, those characters. Nice.

In NYC with the dogs now for a bit. Heading to Dallas in the morning. Glad to be home for a spell, to live and breathe in all the stuff that gives me comfort.

Turning the book in to my publisher on April 1, 2009. Just around the corner.

- Brad

He was born in Columbia. The country. Graduated Cornell. Smart smart.

He was my dear sweet, good friend in recovery, and he died last night. Jorge was young, and his heart just stopped. He was a “grand sponsee” of mine. A man I sponsor in a 12 Step Program of recovery, sponsored Jorge for quite awhile. Then John W. stepped in and took the helm of help.

So more than a friend, he was a fellow soldier in this personal war on addiction. Side by side we trudged. Some will get recovery, and change. Others will sit in the middle somewhere. Still others, people we love and care for, will slip away for a variety of reasons.

I don’t understand, nor find justice in anything around this moment. But there is balance, somewhere I think; I am open to it.

For today I remain free of the bondage of cravings and confusion and active addiction – the realm of living where I remained for twenty+ years. Smoking. Drinking. Snorting. Doing. Hurting. In pain.

Today, I remain full of hope and of service in the brilliant stream of life. I am grateful I am at peace and stand, recovered.

This is a thin beam sometimes.