Family and Friends Fly Free –
October 25, 2019 – “Data shows that about 70% of people who start on an opioid for a non-medical reasons actually get those drugs from a family member or friend,” said Suzi Stolte, Communications and Marketing Director for the JP Opioid Interaction Awareness Alliance. Even the combination of someone’s own prescription medications can be fatal. That’s what led to the death of Stolte’s daughter, Heidi, in 2011.
“She’d been in a car accident, which is what started the prescription for opioids,” explained Stolte. Stolte says Heidi was on painkillers for years after the accident. She worried about the amount Heidi was taking, but in the end, opioids didn’t kill her daughter. It was the addition of another drug, later prescribed to Heidi, that ended her life.
