He had a patch so does that mean he had a prescription for it?
Maybe. But those patches are sold on the black market too. The user chews on them, or a portion of them.
Someone had a prescription for it. He might have just bought it.
We see them in the nursing homes frequently. We get called for someone with symptoms of OD and find that they forgot to remove the old patches when they put on new ones.
Then there was one of our frequent flyers who was chewing them.
Possible if he was being weaned off addiction, but not necessarily. In the past few days I have received two marketing calls using the old cloned number ruse. The spiel launches into how they have help for those with chronic pain. It could be a scam or opioid traffickers trolling for new customers.