By The Korea Times

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A South Korean lawmaker has raised concern over lax prescription rules after government data showed a single patient received more than 6,000 pills for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the first half of this year. Some were prescriptions for more than 1,000 pills at once.
Citing figures submitted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and the National Health Insurance Service on Wednesday, National Assembly Representative Baek Jong-heon of the People Power Party said the patient obtained 6,120 pills through 25 prescriptions at two hospitals in Incheon’s Bupyeong district.
In the past 5½ years since 2021, the patient has received a total of 33,976 pills.
Other individuals were found to have visited multiple clinics and hospitals to obtain large quantities of ADHD medications. One received 2,210 pills through 18 prescriptions from five medical institutions in Seoul and Gyeonggi province, while another acquired 3,315 pills from three clinics in central Seoul.
Medical centres with unusually high prescription rates for ADHD medication were also identified. From January 2020 to June this year, a clinic in Seoul’s Gangnam district dispensed 841,582 pills through 8,790 prescriptions, while another in Busan’s Yeonje district prescribed 511,666 pills.

Five patients were each prescribed more than 1,000 pills at a time. One received 3,696 pills over three prescriptions in Siheung, Gyeonggi province, while another obtained 2,160 pills in just two visits to a hospital in Goyang, also in Gyeonggi province.
Experts warn that ADHD drugs, particularly when taken by children and teenagers without proper medical oversight, pose significant risks including loss of appetite, sleep problems and growth disorders.
“The misconception that ADHD medication can help students perform better academically is fuelling the risk of abuse among teenagers,” Baek said. “It is a serious problem that there is virtually no joint management system between education offices and health authorities for prescriptions to adolescents.”
The data showed that teenagers were the largest group of patients. Between January and May, 65,562 male teenagers received prescriptions for Medikinet Retard capsules, a common ADHD treatment, along with 25,719 female teenagers.
The next largest groups were people in their twenties and thirties.
Seoul accounted for the highest number of ADHD patients nationwide during the same period, with 61,129 cases. Of these, 15,116 were from the Gangnam, Seocho and Songpa districts.
Medical institutions in Seoul’s Jongno district gave out the highest volume of prescriptions for patients aged below 20, dispensing 631,249 pills to children under 10 and 482,565 pills to teenagers in the first half of the year.
This article was first published by The Korea Times