Kansas association honors pharmacist for work to fight prescription-drug addiction

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas Professor Morris Faiman has earned the Cardinal Health Generation Rx Champions Award from the Kansas Pharmacists Association (KPhA) for his efforts to curb community-based prescription drug abuse.

Faiman, professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the School of Pharmacy and research professor at KU’s Life Span Institute, has focused his research for the past 35 years on the molecular mechanisms of drug addiction and developing drugs to treat addiction. He also holds several patents related to his research. For more than 20 years, Faiman has served on the Committee on Impaired Pharmacy Practice (CIPP). 

Mike Larkin, executive director of the Kansas Pharmacists Association, said Faiman’s years of work and research have made a measurable difference in the lives of many.

“Dr. Faiman has devoted many years of his life carrying out basic research to better understand drug addiction, primarily alcohol, in order to reduce the scourge of addiction,” Larkin said. “His clinical expertise and the advice he provides to our committee has been invaluable in helping people break those bonds.”

Faiman has been at the School of Pharmacy since 1965. He has been a member of many committees at the university, including chair of the committee that developed the substance abuse policies for faculty and staff.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of DCCCA, an agency that provides a variety of services, including the prevention and treatment of alcoholism and drug dependency. Faiman has served on many national committees, including various NIH review committees, Veterans Administration Research Review committees, Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Army Medical Research Command Breast Cancer Review and the Women’s Health Initiative Review Committee. He served in an administrative capacity at both the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the NIH in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

Among his many professional honors, Faiman is an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.  Fewer than 0.5 percent of their 100,000-plus members earn this honor each year. He is also an Academy of Toxicological Sciences Fellow. Faiman has been a visiting professor at several universities, including Duke and the University of North Carolina.