"Bring Remaining Narcotic Drugs at Home to Pharmacies"... MFDS Pilot Project in Bucheon

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 1st that it will launch a pilot project called 'Collection and Disposal of Medical Narcotics Used at Home,' which collects leftover narcotic drugs used at home from 100 pharmacies located in Bucheon-si, Gyeonggi Province, and safely disposes of them.

[Photo by Ministry of Food and Drug Safety]

This project is the second pilot project conducted following last year. Participating pharmacies will attach informational signs at pharmacy entrances and other locations to indicate that they accept narcotic drugs for disposal.

It is estimated that about 1.1 billion medical narcotics, such as fentanyl patches (painkillers) and zolpidem (hypnotic sedatives), are dispensed annually at pharmacies. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety plans to promote the collection and disposal project in cooperation with Bucheon-si to encourage widespread public participation and aims to expand the project nationwide in the future.

Oh Yu-kyung, Commissioner of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, stated, "Medical narcotics left unattended at home can be mistaken for other medicines and misused, or abused by other family members, and they can also become channels for illegal distribution. We ask that any prescribed medical narcotics remaining at home be brought to participating pharmacies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.