Java EE (Java Enterprise Edition) General Discussion

I am pretty new to Java and object code, so please understand if you think I should know the answer to this.

I wish to pass a variable from one method to another within one servet. I have a doPost method:

 public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {

    	 HttpSession session = request.getSession();
 	    String userID = (String)session.getAttribute("userID");
 	    String title = request.getParameter("title");
 	   PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
 	   out.println("userID is ..."+userID);
.....................
}

and wish to pass the variable userID to:

  public static void writeToDB(String title) {
    	try{
    		String connectionURL = "jdbc:mysql://localhost/cms_college";
    		Connection connection=null;	
             Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
             connection = DriverManager.getConnection(connectionURL, "root", "");
             Statement st = connection.createStatement();          
			st.executeUpdate ("INSERT INTO cmsarticles (title, userID) VALUES('"+title+"','"+userID+"')"); 
    	}
    	catch(Exception e){
    	      System.out.println("Exception is ;"+e);
    	      }
    }

because, at the moment the userID cannot be resolved in the writeToDB method. Thanking you in anticipation.