A new documentary from MTV, titled “Prescription For Change: Ending America’s Opioid Crisis” features award winning musician Macklemore and President Barack Obama. The video, running approximately 45 minutes, is free to watch on Youtube. Part of it follows three young women on the road to recovery, struggling with addictions to opioids. The documentary really touches on addiction as a disease and mentions the importance of drug treatment programs like inpatient drug treatment, intensive outpatient drug treatment as well as heroin detox and addiction support groups. The most publicized part is a short conversation between Macklemore and Obama after one of the president’s weekly addresses in May 2016. The rapper’s appearance was called ‘historic’ by some sources, since he’s the first non-administration official to participate in a weekly presidential address.
Macklemore mentions that he was once a daily user of Percocet, a narcotic pain reliever which is a combination of oxycodone and paracetamol, and then OxyContin. He personally understands the difficulty of trying to overcome an addiction, and knows at least one person who has died from an overdose. President Obama, while he doesn’t seem to have any personal experience with drugs like Macklemore, had close friends with similar struggles. And as President of the United States, he’s intimately aware of the brewing drug epidemic. Overdoses have spiked tremendously over the years, with deaths doubling over the past ten years. Over a third – almost half – of Americans now know someone who is or has been addicted to prescription painkillers.
In case you missed it, we’ve got the full length video below.