(NewsNation) — Hip hop icon Master P knows the tragic facts of America’s opioid epidemic all too well.
Master P’s 25-year-old daughter Tytyana Miller’s death in May was ruled a fentanyl overdose by a coroner, adding her to a growing list of tens of thousands of Americans who have been killed by the drug.
In a Wednesday appearance on NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Master P said the scourge of fentanyl deaths in the United States knows “no color lines” and does not discriminate based on income.
“My mission is now to help other families get through this, help other kids overcome this,” he said. “My daughter, she was a risk taker, me and her mom, we vowed to get out here and spread this light, spread the love and figure out how we can save other kids.”
Master P said it is pivotal to be truthful and open about what happened.
“This is so important to let other families know, this has no color lines, it doesn’t matter how rich or poor you is,” he said. “My daughter was chasing love, when you look at stuff like this and you find the wrong partner and you end up in a bad place, so this definitely affects all families.”
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, is often mixed into other illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin to give them more potency, without knowledge of the user.
Drug overdoses killed nearly 108,000 people in 2021; roughly two-thirds of those deaths can be attributed to fentanyl, according to the CDC.
“You’ve got to deal with reality, you’ve got to deal with the truth and it’s, like, you start blaming yourself. It breaks up families. It’s just been a horrible thing for me as a person as a I build my business and try to help so many other people,” Master P said. “Also for kids, they have to hold themselves accountable and be able to listen. We talked about this a lot in my household we’ve been going through this for at least nine years and it’s tough.”