Dutch watchmaker and writer Corrie ten Boom on worry:
"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength."
If you look for evidence that people are conspiring to hold you back and the world is working against you, then it will take you no time at all to find precisely that.
If you expect to encounter helpful people and experience a world that is working with you, then you find plenty of evidence to support that view as well.
The raw material for a sweet life or a bitter life is always there. The story you emphasize is the one you notice.
James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Agatha Christie on love:
“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”
Balloon Museum’s exhibition Let’s Fly is open through March 16, 2025, at Ace Mission Studios in Los Angeles.
How 5 States Saved Thousand of Lives
This story starts with Paul Madden, a lawyer from San Francisco. In 1939, he became the director of the California Bureau of the Narcotics Enforcement Agency. He was an imperious, ponderous and a puritanical man who was driven by the force of his moral convictions. He wrote extensively about the perils of narcotics. Narcotics were not just bad they were evil. Drugs ‘destroyed’ people. But his true obsession was painkillers prescribed by doctors. He believed that doctors were handing out opioids indiscriminately. So Madden came up with an elegant solution.
He persuaded the California Legislature to add an amendment to the state’s Health and Safety Code, known as Assembly Bill No. 2606, which passed the Senate on June 6, 1939. The key language is in Section 11166.06:
Every time a doctor wrote a prescription for one of those opioids, he or she had to use a special prescription pad supplied by Madden’s Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement: The prescription blanks shall be printed on distinctive paper, serial number of the book being shown on each form, and also each form being serially numbered. Each prescription blank shall be printed in triplicate with one blank attached to the book in such a manner that it will be readily removed, while two of the blanks shall be perforated for removal.
A copy of every an opioid prescription went to the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement by month’s end. In 1943 Hawaii passed legislation to support the triplicate rule as well as 8 more states: Illinois by Idaho, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Michigan. Years later only 5 states still enforced triplicates.
And this is where is gets interesting. Fast forward to the Opioid Epidemic.
Purdue packaged oxycodone in a high-dose extended-release tablet. The company marketed its invention around the world calling it OxyContin.
Purdue was known for its aggressive sales campaign. They had documentation on every doctor that prescribed painkillers and sent sales people to their offices to encourage, to offer incentives and even cajole doctors to write more OxyContin prescriptions. But early on they found that they were having problems gaining any traction with doctors from Houston. The doctors in Houston were very reluctant to over prescribe painkillers to patients. As hard as they tried to get the doctors to prescribe more OxyContin there was always push back. And the push back was because doctors in Texas knew that a copy of every prescription went to the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement. There was an overseeer that they were very aware of.
Purdue’s management team read the advisory report that said that no traction had been gained in the ‘triplicate’ states and [Purdue] took it seriously. The launch of OxyContin—one of the most sophisticated and aggressive drug-marketing campaigns the world of medicine has ever seen—was targeted at states without triplicate laws.
Below is a chart of per-capita opioid consumption.
These are states with no triplicate program
Nevada 1,019.9
West Virginia 1,011.6
Tennessee 938.3
Oklahoma 884.9
Delaware 881.5
These are the states with a triplicate program
Illinois 366
New York 441.6
California 450.2
Texas 453.1
Idaho 561.1
As you can see opioid consumption in the triplicate program are at least half. As a result, the addiction rates and the number of deaths due to the opioid crisis were dramatically less. The triplicate program that was started years before the opioid crisis saved thousands of lives …if you were lucky enough to live in a state with a triplicate program.
Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering
Have a good weekend.
During the winter, everything in the landscape seems to be frozen in time, wind, snow and ice are king at this time of the year, while the sparse vegetation of the Arctic just waits patiently for another summer to arrive. Somehow, water always finds a way to keep flowing. Sometimes deep below the ice and other times right at the surface – either way it shows the landscape is still alive.
Interesting section on opioids.
Fascinating Malcolm Gladwell piece!