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For many, friends and family, not doctors, serve as a gateway to opioid misuse

In a common narrative of the path to opioid misuse, people become addicted to painkillers after a doctor prescribed them pills to treat an injury and then, later, switch to harder drugs, such as heroin. However, nonmedical opioid users were more likely to say they began abusing opioids after…

Study: Friends, family are most common gateway to addiction, not doctors

By Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The often-told story of the prescription for an opioid that launches the patient down the road to ruin is not the typical tale of heroin addiction, according to a new report by researchers from Penn State and other universities. More common, according to the…