Two years following the death of music icon Prince, another music superstar discussed his own addiction to prescription drugs.
“He went on to talk about, ‘Nobody really showed love for me when I was addicted to opioids and in the hospital,’” HOT 97 radio host Ebro Darden said Monday morning.
Darden talked about a phone call he had with rapper Kanye West over the weekend. He said West opened up about his battle with prescription drugs that resulted in hospitalization. It’s the same addiction that killed the purple one in 2016.
“We're going to solve this problem. We're going to solve it with brains, we're going to solve it with resolve, we're going to resolve it with toughness,” President Donald Trump said last month.
The president outlined his strategy to put an end to the opioid crisis:
- Education in schools and though TV advertisements
- Treatment through rehabilitation; Trump praised the use of Narcan
- Enforcement, saying some drug dealers should get the death penalty
In 2016, 1,384 opioid related deaths were reported in North Carolina, according to the state health and human services agency. That same year, there were 550 opioid related deaths in South Carolina, according to the its department of health and environmental control.
“This isn't about dinners. This isn't about committees where everyone gets a medal for frankly doing nothing. This is about winning a very, very tough problem,” Trump said.
Rapper Kanye West has not spoken publicly about opioid addiction.