Getting ADHD Medication While Living in Türkiye: Prescription, Pharmacy Supply and the Limits of Possession

One provision sets the frame for anyone who needs a continuing supply of a prescription stimulant while in Türkiye: TCK 188/6. It provides that the paragraphs of Article 188 also apply to every kind of substance whose production depends on the permission of the official authorities, or whose sale depends on a prescription issued by an authorised physician (yetkili tabip tarafından düzenlenen reçete), and which produces a narcotic or stimulant effect. The same paragraph adds that the penalty may be reduced by up to half.

Because the provision describes these substances by the prescription requirement, the lawful route runs through that prescription: a physician authorised in Türkiye who examines the person and decides on the treatment, a prescription issued by that physician, and the medicine dispensed against it at a pharmacy. A friend who still has some tablets left, a seller on a messaging app, a parcel from home and a pharmacy asked to make an exception are all outside that route.

This note does not say whether any particular active substance falls within TCK 188/6 or within any other Turkish law on controlled substances. It also does not say which prescription form applies, whether a prescription written abroad is accepted at a Turkish pharmacy, how much may be dispensed at one time, or whether an import permit can be obtained. The physician and the pharmacist are the people who can say which document is needed in your case.

Whether to continue, change or stop a treatment is a clinical decision. It belongs to the physician, not to this page and not to a lawyer.

Article 188 is the Penal Code's provision on the manufacture of and trade in narcotic or stimulant substances. Paragraph 6 does not create a separate, lighter offence for medicines. It takes the paragraphs above it and applies them to a second group of substances, defined by two features that must both be present:

1. Control. The production of the substance depends on the permission of the official authorities, or its sale depends on a prescription issued by an authorised physician.
2. Effect. The substance produces a narcotic or stimulant effect.

Where both are present, the paragraphs of Article 188 apply, and the penalty may be reduced by up to half. The word is may: the reduction is for the court to decide, and the text does not make it automatic.

The paragraphs that matter for a person living in Türkiye are these.

• TCK 188/3 punishes a person who, without a licence or contrary to a licence (ruhsatsız veya ruhsata aykırı olarak), sells, offers for sale, gives to others, ships, transports, stores, buys, accepts or possesses narcotic or stimulant substances inside the country. The penalty is imprisonment of not less than ten years and a judicial fine. Where the person to whom the substance is given or sold is a child, the prison term for the person who gives or sells it cannot be less than fifteen years.
• TCK 188/1 punishes a person who manufactures, imports or exports narcotic or stimulant substances without a licence or contrary to a licence, with imprisonment of twenty to thirty years.
• TCK 188/4-a provides that where the substance is heroin, cocaine, morphine, base morphine, synthetic cannabinoids and their derivatives, synthetic cathinones and their derivatives, synthetic opioids and their derivatives, or amphetamine and its derivatives, the penalty is increased by half.

Paragraph 4-a raises the penalties of Article 188. It does not say that any medicine is an amphetamine derivative, and neither does this note. Whether the active substance in a particular tablet falls into one of the categories in 188/4-a is a question for the forensic report and for the court; the page on the drug laboratory report explains how that report is produced and challenged.

What happens when ADHD medication is carried across the border on arrival is covered in a separate note, ADHD medication at the Turkish border. This note is about the time after arrival: obtaining a supply inside the country and keeping it within the law.

The steps below describe the route that the law itself points to. They are not a promise that a given medicine will be prescribed or will be on the shelf, and the physician may reach a different clinical view from the one at home.

1. See a physician authorised to practise in Türkiye. Bring the medical records from home: the diagnosis, the treatment history, the active substance and the dose. A Turkish or English translation can help the physician read them. The decision on treatment is the physician's.
2. Ask the physician what is required. Ask whether the medicine can be prescribed in Türkiye, which prescription is needed and what the physician needs from you. Do not assume that the answer will match the system at home.
3. Fill the prescription at a pharmacy. Ask the pharmacist which document the pharmacy needs to see.
4. Keep the papers. Keep the pharmacy packaging, the patient leaflet and whatever record of the prescription and the dispensing you are given. They are the documents that show where the tablets in your bag came from.

Do not ask a pharmacist to make an exception. A request to hand over a box now and see the prescription later asks the pharmacist to step outside the prescription requirement on which TCK 188/6 is built. On the buyer's side, a purchase that does not go through a prescription leaves the buyer holding a controlled substance without the document on which the lawful route depends.

A prescription from home. This note does not say whether a prescription written abroad is accepted at a Turkish pharmacy, and it should not be read as saying either yes or no. Ask the pharmacist and a physician in Türkiye before relying on it.

Online sellers and messaging apps. A seller who offers prescription stimulants without a prescription from an authorised physician is outside the route described above, whatever the website looks like and wherever the seller says it is based. Paying such a seller and receiving the goods is buying and accepting within the meaning of TCK 188/3, and the purpose of the purchase is then assessed by the prosecutor and the court.

A person who holds their own medicine, dispensed by a pharmacy on a prescription from a physician in Türkiye, is on the route the law describes. The risks begin where the medicine leaves that route: when it is passed on, when it belongs to someone else, or when it arrives from abroad by a channel that is not a pharmacy.

Giving tablets to someone else. TCK 188/3 lists giving to others (başkalarına veren) among the acts it punishes when done without a licence or contrary to a licence, next to selling and offering for sale. Read with 188/6, that includes a prescription stimulant handed to a partner, a flatmate, a classmate before an exam or a colleague before a deadline. The law does not treat this as a small favour. The prescription was issued for the patient, and the act of giving falls within the paragraph that carries a term of not less than ten years, which 188/6 allows the court to reduce by up to half. Selling surplus tablets falls within the same paragraph.

Holding someone else's medicine. A box dispensed on another person's prescription is not covered by your own. Transporting, storing and possessing are among the acts listed in 188/3. If you are asked to carry a family member's medicine, keep it in its pharmacy packaging with that person's documents, and remember that the prosecutor assesses the purpose of the possession from the circumstances. The page on carrying drugs for someone else sets out how that question is examined.

Ordering from abroad. TCK 188/1 covers import without a licence or contrary to a licence, and 188/6 applies it to prescription substances with a stimulant effect. A parcel of tablets sent from home to a Turkish address is therefore not a neutral shortcut around the pharmacy: the file that opens may be an import file. The note on drugs sent by post to Türkiye explains how such a file starts.

The line between Article 188 and Article 191 is purpose. TCK 191/1 punishes a person who buys, accepts or possesses narcotic or stimulant substances for use (kullanmak için), or who uses them, with imprisonment of two to five years. Article 188/3 lists the same acts of buying, accepting and possessing without that purpose. Which provision a file proceeds under is decided by the prosecutor and the court on the circumstances; the law gives no list of quantities in these provisions.

Where a file proceeds under Article 191, the statute sets out a route designed to end without a trial.

• Deferral. Under TCK 191/2, the opening of the public case is deferred for five years (kamu davasının açılmasının ertelenmesi), without the conditions of CMK 171 being required. The decision is also notified to the police.
• Supervision. Under TCK 191/3, supervised probation (denetimli serbestlik) is applied for at least one year during the deferral, and the period may be extended by six-month periods by up to two more years. Treatment may be ordered where needed, and the prosecutor refers the person for testing at least twice a year.
• Breach. Under TCK 191/4, a public case is opened if, during the deferral, the person persists in not complying with the obligations or the treatment, or again buys, accepts or possesses the substance for use, or uses it. Under 191/5, such acts count as a breach and are not made the subject of a separate investigation.
• Closing the file. Under TCK 191/7, if the person does not breach the obligations and prohibitions during the deferral, a decision of non-prosecution (kovuşturmaya yer olmadığı) is given.
• Where a trial began under Article 188. Under TCK 191/8, if during a prosecution for manufacture of and trade in narcotic or stimulant substances under Article 188 it is understood that the act falls solely within Article 191, the court defers the announcement of the verdict (hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması) within the framework of Article 191.
• Location. Under TCK 191/10, the penalty is increased by half where the acts in 191/1 are committed in public places within two hundred metres of buildings such as schools, dormitories, hospitals, barracks or places of worship.

For a person who lives in Türkiye, the deferral route assumes presence: reporting, testing and, where ordered, treatment take place in Türkiye during the deferral. Anyone planning to leave the country during that period should read leaving Türkiye during drug supervision first. The five-year period itself is explained in the TCK 191 deferral note.

If the police or the prosecutor have already contacted you about medication, do not explain where tablets came from before you have spoken to a lawyer. The general framework for narcotics files is on the drug offences page, and the wider position on medicines is on medication laws in Türkiye.