While it is still unknown whether drugs were involved in the untimely death of Prince, a new report now claims that the music legend had entered an outpatient treatment program before he died.
Sources told KSTP 5 Eyewitness News in Minneapolis that Prince was seeing a physician to try and move away from the prescription medication the singer was taking to relieve severe hip pain.
They did not say that Prince was addicted to controlled substances.
Many patients seek outpatient therapy when they want to ensure they do not become dependent on medication or when they fear an addiction may be forming, according to the sources.
An official cause of death for Prince has still not been confirmed, and it may take weeks before toxicology results are available.
Prescription painkillers were found in the singer’s Paisley Park mansion at the time of his death, but whether they played a role in his demise is still unknown.
People reported that Prince “had a history” of using the painkiller Percocet.
Six days before his passing, Prince was treated for an overdose of the drug.
His plane made an emergency landing after he fell unconscious and was given a “save shot,” typically administered to counteract the effects of opiates such as Percoset.
Celebrity Rehab host Dr. Drew Pinsky said he suspects Prince may have suffered an “accidental overdose.”
“Although opiates figure into this story, it doesn’t really sound like an addiction story,” he said.
“Even if it ends up being drugs that caused him to stop breathing, I would put it more in the accident category than the addiction category,” he continued.
Pinsky believes that the Purple Rain star may have OD’d on a “combination of oral opiates and Benzodiazepines,” which he says is “extraordinarily dangerous.”
Still, doctors prescribe the potentially lethal cocktail “all the time,” Pinsky claimed, which he believes is irresponsible.
“An otherwise healthy middle-aged man with hip pain should not be on opiates chronically. Period.”
