In 1999, Purdue Pharma the maker of OxyContin went on a massive marketing campaign. Back then, prescription opioids were only used in extreme cases - post surgery, end of life care, cancer pain. We use a clip from an ad in the film where they had a doctor saying, "Less than 1 percent of people who use prescription opioid long-term will become addicted" - that changed the mindset of physicians across the country.

There seems is predominantly a white person's drug addiction epidemic, so that's why you see white people in our film, Warning: This Drug May Kill You.

Addiction is a brain disease - this isn't a moral failing - and we have got to stop looking at it that way.

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.

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 can prevent more people from becoming more addicted - that's number one - with prescribing laws and making sure that people can't get too many of these opioids when they are initially prescribed them. Number two is, we have to make sure the millions of people who are already addicted have access to good and effective treatment. Finally, it's critical that we remove stigma and that's why we've made a film, to show that this can happen to anyone.

It is unacceptable that the way we have treated people who have become addicted in the past is by throwing them in prison. It's appropriate that we're responding now by trying to get people the treatment they so desperately need. The racial divide here is absolutely unacceptable, and we have to do much better for all people who are addicted whether they are white, black, brown, any race - the humane way to respond to addiction is in a public health fashion and by getting people the help they need.