LANSING (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday that she wants to cut the number of Michigan’s opioid-related overdose deaths in half within five years, joining with other top state officials to outline several initiatives to combat the epidemic.

Her administration announced a $1 million advertising campaign to reduce the stigma associated with seeking treatment and a plan to no longer require Medicaid recipients to get prior insurance authorization from health plans to be prescribed medicines that treat opioid abuse starting Dec. 2.

Three prisons will pilot medication-assisted treatment — methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone — for inmates, more than 20 percent of whom have an opioid use disorder. And the state Department of Health and Human Services said it expanded the number of places where syringe service, or needle exchange, programs are offered.

The programs can reduce the prevalence of diseases, provide overdose-reversal medications and increase the odds that participants will access recovery services.

“It should not be easier to get an opioid prescription than it is to access treatment,” Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, the state’s chief medical executive, said during a news conference at the Forest Community Health Center in Lansing.

“Addiction is not a moral failing. Addiction is a disease,” Whitmer said. The good news, she said, is that it can be prevented and managed if is treated as a disease and if the stigma is eliminated.

The ad campaign will be the state’s first to directly address the stigma associated with people seeking treatment for addiction to prescription drugs or opioids such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl. It will begin later this month and will include TV, radio, social media, online ads and billboards.

“People who feel understanding and acceptance are more likely to get help,” said state Health and Human Services Department Director Robert Gordon.