The mother of a Twin Cities teenager who died after taking a pill she thought was for pain - but turned out to be fentanyl - is turning her grief into action.
"My daughter Drue was 17 when she injured herself playing basketball in Cottage Grove."
Vanessa Marlowe describing how her daughter became addicted to opioids. That included stealing them, and ultimately, addiction.
"Buying fentanyl off the streets, caused her to not wake up one morning," says Marlowe.
She says it's become very easy to buy online with drug dealers using symbols to entice young people to buy them.
"Kids are really smart these days and they come up with little symbols and ways to hide what they're doing," Marlowe adds.
She and others will be taking part in a National Walk for Lives event at the State Capitol in St. Paul on Saturday, September 20. They'll be sharing information on treatment, and other life saving tools like Narcan.
Matt Wiseman is a PA with M Health Fairview and treats patients who are addicted to the drug. Wiseman says it's often difficult for them to understand that using another drug, like Soboxone to help ease the craving, is necessary.
"Even people's family members who know that their loved one's life has been ruined," says Wiseman. "Ruined by substance use, and still have that same idea of and same stigma around using a medicine to help someone, essentially get rid of their addiction."