Prince’s opioid ‘addiction’

– A doctor who saw Prince in the days before he died prescribed oxycodone under the name of Prince’s friend to protect the musician’s privacy, according to an affidavit unsealed yesterday.

The document is one of several affidavits and search warrants unsealed in Carver County District Court as the year-long investigation into Prince’s death continues.

Prince was 57 when he was found unresponsive at his Paisley Park home on April 21. Autopsy results showed he died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times more powerful than heroin.

According to the search warrants, authorities searched Paisley Park, cellphone records of Prince’s associate, and Prince’s e-mail accounts to determine where he got the fentanyl.

A search of Prince’s home yielded numerous pills in various containers.

Some were in prescription bottles under the name Kirk Johnson, Prince’s longtime friend and associate. Some were counterfeit. At least one counterfeit pill tested positive for fentanyl.

The documents suggest Prince was struggling with an addiction to prescription opioids.

Just six days before he died, he fell ill on a plane and made an emergency stop in Illinois. First responders revived him with two doses of a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

One affidavit says Dr Michael Todd Schulenberg, who saw Prince last April 7 and again on April 20, admitted to authorities that he prescribed oxycodone for Prince the same day as the emergency plane landing, “but put the prescription in Kirk Johnson’s name for Prince’s privacy”.

Messages left with attorneys for Schulenberg and Johnson weren’t immediately returned yesterday.

Investigators haven’t interviewed either Johnson or Schulenberg since the hours after Prince died, an official with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.

While authorities have the power to ask a grand jury to investigate and issue subpoenas for testimony, that step hasn’t been taken, the official said. – AP

Minneapolis