By Kang Gyeong-min, Student Reporter, (SNSJTV / Daily Union) = South Korea once prided itself as a drug free nation. That illusion is fading fast. Classrooms once considered safe havens and city streets once thought secure are now gateways through which narcotics reach teenagers.

In today’s hyper connected world, only a few clicks on social media or instant messaging apps can bring dangerous substances to a young person’s doorstep. According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, more than 200 cases of illegal online fentanyl sales targeting adolescents were uncovered in the first half of this year, triple last year’s total of 62. Arrests tell the same story: teenage offenders rose from 481 in 2022 to 1,477 in 2023. The phrase “drug free nation” no longer holds.

As the numbers rise, teenagers themselves are stepping in with solutions. Alarmed by the crisis, a group of international school students has launched a prevention initiative called Not A Lab. The project’s name carries a warning: “Drugs are not laboratory tools. Your body and your future must not become an experiment.” By framing drug use as a misguided experiment, the campaign speaks directly to the curiosity that often drives first time users.

Adolescents remain especially vulnerable. Peer pressure, easy digital access, and the lure of trying it once make experimentation dangerously tempting. Official data shows that 2.6 percent of teenagers have already tried narcotics. At the same time, legitimate prescriptions for controlled substances are on the rise, climbing from 54 in 2019 to 81 in 2022. Prescriptions for fentanyl patches alone increased more than 84 percent in that period. Yet systematic prevention education remains scarce.

The Not A Lab campaign will expand this October to schools across South Korea and Mongolia. Students have produced a bilingual guidebook, with 50 copies ready for distribution, and created a mobile website and app that let peers fact check drug components. A digital filter called ClearAI was designed to screen misinformation. Posters built around storytelling, peer led question and answer sessions, and interactive workshops are also planned, with the aim of reaching at least 100 participants and sparking measurable change in awareness. Organizers acknowledge that awareness is harder to quantify, but stress that even small shifts in peer understanding can prevent dangerous first steps.

“This isn’t someone else’s problem, it’s our reality,” said Choi Ha-eum, one of the student organizers. “We want to fill the educational gap that schools and society have left empty.”

Experts support the approach. A preventive medicine specialist noted that peer to peer programs are among the most effective methods, since teenagers respond more readily when the message comes from those who share their daily lives.

The project has also drawn praise as a model of how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly health, well being, and quality education, can converge in practice. Students plan to present their work at proposal competitions, where mentors, sponsors, and universities can see its potential social impact.

Amplified by cooperation with the SNS Journalists Network, what began as a small classroom call is now echoing beyond school walls, a challenge for society to listen and to act.

This article was researched and written by Kang Gyeong-min, student reporter, as part of the student journalist training program.