Last year, 4 in 10 people in Korea received at least one prescription for medical narcotics. As the government strengthened policies to control misuse and abuse, prescriptions for fentanyl patches and appetite suppressants fell, while prescriptions for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medications continued to rise.
According to the "2025 statistics on the handling of medical narcotics" released on the 24th by the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety and the Korea Institute of Drug Satety & Risk Management, the number of patients prescribed medical narcotics last year totaled 20.2 million. The number of prescribed units reached 1,957.24 million, marking a fifth straight annual increase.
A large share of patients prescribed medical narcotics were found to have used the drugs for anesthesia or sedation during health checkups or surgery. Among patients last year, 12.62 million were prescribed anesthetics including propofol, and 9.72 million were prescribed hypnotic-sedatives such as midazolam and zolpidem. The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety noted that propofol and midazolam injections are widely used during health checkups.
By age group, those in their 50s were the largest at 4.15 million (20.5%), followed by those in their 60s at 3.96 million (19.6%) and those in their 40s at 3.82 million (18.9%). Patients in their 40s to 60s accounted for 59% of the total.
By therapeutic class, anxiolytics were the most prescribed at 923.82 million units. They were followed by hypnotic-sedatives (325.12 million), antiepileptics (252.43 million), and appetite suppressants (213.72 million).
By contrast, analgesics and appetite suppressants continued to decline. Prescriptions for analgesics fell 15.4% from 83.88 million in 2021 to 70.98 million last year, while appetite suppressants dropped 12.8% from 244.95 million to 213.72 million over the same period.
In particular, fentanyl patches saw a pronounced decrease after the implementation of the mandatory medication history check system. The number of patients prescribed the patches fell 35.7% from 12,083 before implementation to 7,772 two years after. The number of prescriptions and prescribed volume also dropped by 31.5% and 24.2%, respectively.
The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety assessed that the medication history check system through the medical shopping prevention information network is effective in reducing unnecessary prescriptions and duplicate or excessive dosing. It also analyzed that the decline in appetite suppressants reflects both the government's misuse and abuse control policies and the expanded use of non-narcotic glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) obesity treatments.
Meanwhile, prescriptions for methylphenidate, an ADHD medication, continued to increase. Last year's prescribed volume was 108.15 million units, up 138.3% from 45.38 million in 2021. The number of patients prescribed the drug also rose from 170,000 to 390,000 over the same period.
However, the pace of increase is slowing. The growth rate of methylphenidate prescription volume eased from 25.5% in 2022, 28.4% in 2023, and 23.3% in 2024 to 19.9% last year. The growth rate in the number of patients fell from 29.9% to 16.2%.
The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety explained that growing public attention to ADHD and more diagnoses are behind the increase in prescriptions. It noted, however, that policies to prevent misuse and abuse—such as the advance notification system, establishing safe-use standards, and expanding the medication history check system—are seen to have contributed to the slowdown.
Meanwhile, the number of handlers of medical narcotics increased to 49,117 institutions last year from a year earlier, and the number of prescribing physicians rose to 114,807.
An official at the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety said, "This year we will expand the medication history check targets to include zolpidem and propofol, and within the year we will establish the artificial intelligence (AI)-based 'K-NASS (integrated surveillance system for narcotics misuse and abuse)' to strengthen the management and oversight of medical narcotics misuse and abuse."