Tom Petty’s Cause of Death Gives Twitter Another Reason to Mourn

The toxicology report of Tom Petty was released Friday, coming nearly four months after the beloved rock musician passed away in October.

After its release, fans were saddened once again when the cause of death was revealed to be an accidental overdose of prescription medication. Many were outraged by the fact that Petty’s prescriptions given to him by a doctor were what did him in.

“Tom Petty is one more in a long line of tragic examples of the failure of the War on Drugs. When fentanyl analogues (and their associated high risk of mortality) are more accessible than medical treatment (suboxone, methadone, psych) we are failing ourselves as a humane society,” one tweeter wrote.

“Tom Petty died from an overdose of drugs. The list of meds in his body was criminal. When are doctors going to be held responsible for administering all of these lethal drugs to their patients,” another fan going by the username “BlueinPDX” tweeted.

According to a statement written by Petty’s family and released on his Facebook page, Petty was suffering from a fractured hip, knee issues and emphysema.

“We knew before the report was shared with us that he was prescribed various pain medications for a multitude of issues including Fentanyl patches and we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident,” the post read. “As a family we recognize this report may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that it is a healthy and necessary discussion and we hope in some way this report can save lives. Many people who overdose begin with a legitimate injury or simply do not understand the potency and deadly nature of these medications.”

The drugs he was taking to combat the pain included Fentanyl, an highly-addictive opioid that was also involved in the death of pop icon Prince back in 2016.