We did decide that every addict in this film, Warning: This Drug May Kill You, would be someone who started out with a prescription for an opioid from a doctor. The story that hadn't been told is that the vast majority - somewhere around 80 percent - of current heroin users began with an addiction to prescription opioids. So as much as people might want to look at this and say, 'Oh this is really a heroin problem,' yes, it is a heroin problem, and no one is saying differently, but it starts more often than not with a prescription.

We did decide that every addict in this film, Warning: This Drug May Kill You, would be someone who started out with a prescription for an opioid from a doctor. The story that hadn't been told is that the vast majority - somewhere around 80 percent - of current heroin users began with an addiction to prescription opioids. So as much as people might want to look at this and say, 'Oh this is really a heroin problem,' yes, it is a heroin problem, and no one is saying differently, but it starts more often than not with a prescription.

It seemed that the problem of Americans overdosing and dying from drug addiction was being described as bad people, particularly kids, who were abusing good drugs. But Sheila Nevins, the president of HBO Documentary Films, and I were particularly interested in finding out the stories of people and families who had been ravaged by this disease of addiction and understanding what really was happening. What we found was that, and let's not make any mistake about it, this is an epidemic of addiction.

I really do think for the vast majority of cases, doctors didn't think they were doing anything wrong - they were doing what was being recommended at the time, and many times people were able to take these prescription opioids and not have a problem with it. But what we do know is that if we take these drugs long-term, dependency develops quickly, within as little as a week. What we all have to realize is that these pills are chemical cousins of heroin - one is an illegal opioid and one is legal, but they are relatives.

We must do something to let people in this country know that addiction is something that can be treated and this epidemic of prescribed opioids is something that we can fix.

Life expectancy for middle-aged white women has dropped dramatically over the past decade. Researchers didn't understand what was going on and so they were studying it and then very recently they realized it is driven by opioids. Why is that? They say now that it is because women are more likely to see a doctor for pain.

We are having a public health response to this epidemic of prescription opioids. We are looking at treatment options, there are drugs being made available for treatments, and we aren't just throwing people in prison. So this is a very different response than the traditional criminal justice response that we have had to past drug epidemics.