Opioid-related deaths have become a full on public health crisis in this country, so much so that anything that can be done to raise awareness of the severity of this issue is massively important.
Enter Macklemore, who joined President Obama at The White House for an address focusing on the issue of opioid addiction. Obama, who “called on Congress to pass the $1.1 billion in new funding in his Budget to make sure that every American with an opioid use disorder who wants treatment can get the help they need,” according to a White House statement, made it very clear that this is in no way a typical epidemic.
“Deaths from opioid overdoses have tripled since 2000. A lot of time, they’re from legal drugs prescribed from a doctor, so addiction doesn’t always start in some dark alley; it often starts in a medicine cabinet.”
Macklemore related some personal ties to the epidemic on his and Ryan Lewis’s recent record The Unruly Mess I’ve Made and is working on a documentary with MTV on the topic.
Honored to be at @WhiteHouse with @MTV to talk to @POTUS about opioid addiction. Really excited for this project. pic.twitter.com/feb7AfoHqn
— Macklemore (@macklemore) May 12, 2016
“Addiction isn’t a personal choice or a personal failing, and sometimes it takes more than a strong will to get better,” he said. “It takes a strong community and accessible resources.”
(via Rolling Stone)
