As a young Nova Scotia woman is laid to rest, her family and friends are blaming a prescription drug overdose and pleading with others to learn from their loss.

They say 20-year-old Katanna MacDonald died in Greenwood, N.S. last week after taking methadone she bought on the street. Now they want to see changes to how the drug is handed out.

"We're talking about it and we're trying to get awareness out and if we can get government to talk about it…then it'd be awesome," says the victim's cousin, Eric Schofield.

Schofield and a friend have started a Facebook page called ‘Get Methadone off our Streets.' Nearly 6,000 people have joined the group in less than three days.

"If it wasn't allowed on the street and it wasn't, you know, two, three, four-day doses, then there's a good chance she'd still be here," says friend Emma Schofield.

An RCMP spokesperson says he's aware that MacDonald's family and friends believe it was a methadone overdose that claimed her life, but he says that investigators can't confirm her cause of death until they receive autopsy results and toxicology reports.

They say their investigation is still in its early stages but MacDonald's family and friends are doing their own groundwork and calling for change on how the prescription drug is distributed.

"It's highly addictive and it should never make it onto the street, but they let people carry it out of the pharmacy and that's kind of where we think there should be a line drawn," says Emma Schofield.

She says she would like to see methadone stay in clinics or pharmacies, and not be sent home with addicts.

The director of Addiction Services in Nova Scotia says that is the case for the majority of people in the treatment program.

"They have the most conservative guidelines we feel in Canada for methadone now, in terms of take-homes and carries, it's already very restrictive," says Carolyn Davison.

Still, Emma Schofield says she plans to continue the fight.

"And that we'd know she didn't die for anything, you know, that she helped somebody in her death," she says.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Jacqueline Foster