Naloxone for All! -The Inventor of Naloxone

Great news! Starting June 1, 2017, anyone can get naloxone at a Maryland pharmacy without a prescription. [https://bha.health.maryland.gov/NALOXONE/Pages/Naloxone.aspx]

For those who are unfamiliar with Naloxone, in short, Naloxone (NARCAN®, EVZIO®) is a prescription medication that safely and effectively reverses an opioid overdose.

Jack Fishman is the man who invented naloxone. He was born in 1930 in Poland and fled from the Nazis and eventually immigrated to the U.S. It was at a small private lab in New York City where he was trying to find a way to treat constipation caused by chronic opioid use. In this process, in 1961, Fishman invented naloxone, a medicine that temporarily blocks the effects of opioids in the body!

Naloxone provided many second chances to people who struggled with addiction and became a standard treatment for opioid overdose in emergency rooms across the country.

However, one great irony happened in Fishman’s life, as his stepson, Jonathan Stampler, died of a heroin overdose in Florida in 2004. But shock has translated to action. Joy Stampler, Jack Fishman’s wife, has become an outspoken proponent of naloxone availability and launched a foundation in January in Jack Fishman’s name to make naloxone more available to mothers of people who struggle with addiction. Neil Fishman, the son of Jack Fishman, has worked with his state representatives in Maine on legislation to increase naloxone access and to pass 911 Good Samaritan laws to encourage people to call 911 to report an overdose. Other members of Jack Fishman’s family have also become involved in promoting naloxone.

The movement towards increasing access to naloxone to all people has brought us to do this day of anyone being able to get naloxone in Maryland without a prescription! Read more about Jack Fishman’s life from the original article from huffingtonpost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tessie-castillo/meet-jack-fishman-the-man_b_6329512.html,

and check out the video links to learn more about Naloxone!