Food and Drug Safety Ministry officials present plans to strengthen monitoring and curb misuse of medical narcotics during at the Government Complex Seoul in Jongno District, central Seoul, on June. 18.YONHAP
Around 20.01 million Koreans received at least one prescription for medical narcotics in 2024, a trend that has raised questions over the oversight of brief consultations and telemedicine.
The number of prescriptions reached nearly 100 million that year, with some 1.9 billion pills and other units prescribed in total, according to an analysis by the National Assembly Research Service released Thursday.
That amounts to an annual average of about 96 units of medical narcotics prescribed per patient.
The increase was pronounced among children and teenagers. Some 67.3 million pills and other units of medical narcotics were prescribed to patients aged 19 and under in 2024, up 1.9-fold from 36 million in 2020. By comparison, prescriptions across all age groups rose 1.1-fold during the same period.
Prescriptions for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications in general surged 139 percent to 90.2 million during the same period. Antianxiety medications, sedative-hypnotics and antiepileptic drugs continued to be prescribed in large quantities.
Prescriptions for fentanyl patches and appetite suppressants declined somewhat, falling 20.6 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively.
Amid the overall rise, concerns are growing over the long-term use of drugs that carry risks of addiction and dependence.
Prescriptions issued after brief consultations could lead to excessive use and illegal distribution. Without sufficient examination, medical professionals may have difficulty assessing a patient’s risk of addiction or determining whether the patient has received duplicate prescriptions for the same drug from other medical institutions.
Patients may also receive insufficient explanations about when and how their dosage should be reduced or when they should stop taking a drug, and consent procedures may also be inadequate. Medications prescribed under such circumstances also face a greater risk of entering the illegal distribution market through proxy pickup or identity theft.
Adderall XR capsules, used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, are shown in a photo taken Feb. 24, 2023.AP/YONHAP
Medical narcotics prescribed through telemedicine have also been identified as a regulatory blind spot.
Prescribing medical narcotics and other drugs with a high risk of misuse or abuse through telemedicine has, in principle, been prohibited since November 2021. However, there were 29,323 such cases in 2022 and 11,017 in 2023, according to Ministry of Health and Welfare data submitted to Rep. Park Hee-Seong of the Democratic Party in 2024. Another 122 were issued from January through April 2024.
But only two cases resulted in administrative penalties for violations of the relevant regulations during that period.
Gaps in oversight of telemedicine prescriptions also came under scrutiny in 2025 after a celebrity was reportedly found to have received a prescription for psychotropic medication following a telephone consultation lasting just a few minutes.
The government operates the Drug Utilization Review system and the Narcotics Information Management System to monitor prescriptions and prevent drug misuse. It also sends physicians drug safety letters providing information such as patients’ prescription histories.
Critics say that despite having the data and systems needed to identify risky prescribing practices, authorities have failed to translate that information into meaningful warnings and penalties for high-risk medical institutions. More proactive administrative measures, such as publicly disclosing the names of high-risk medical institutions, have also been insufficient, they say.
“The issue should not be reduced to individual misconduct while brief consultation practices and a lax control system are left unaddressed,” the National Assembly Research Service said. “Fundamental systemic reforms, including mandatory real-time monitoring, must follow.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
