(CNN) Nashville Mayor Megan Barry returned to work less than two weeks after her 22-year-old son, Max, died from an apparent drug overdose.

On " The Lead with Jake Tapper ," Barry candidly discussed her son's tragic death and the importance of opening a discussion on the issue.

"I'm speaking today as a mom, but as a mayor I have a responsibility to make sure that we're doing things in our community so that other children and other parents don't have this same fate," she told Tapper. The state of Tennessee had the 10th highest number of drug-related deaths in 2015.

Barry is still waiting for a toxicology report, and wasn't able to confirm the exact cause of Max's death, or which drugs may have been involved. She spoke about how his problems with drugs began.

"His drug addiction started with a prescription and it did start with Xanax," Barry said, saying that Max went to rehab in summer 2016. The visit to rehab "got him back on the right track," she said, and Max returned to high school and graduated in spring 2017.

Mayor two weeks after her son died of overdose: "We have to realize this is an epidemic" https://t.co/pzidzmEgY4 https://t.co/c703g6Pcrh — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 8, 2017

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