Designer drugs in psychiatric practice - a review of the literature and the recent situation in Hungary.

In recent years service providers experienced a new phenomenon in the drug markets of Hungary: the dramatically increasing sale and use of designer drugs. In psychiatric practice, the first sign of this new trend was the increasing number of hospitalized patients with acute psychosis using a new type of designer drug: MDPV (3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone). The range of designer drugs available is wider than ever before. They are inexpensive and many times are known to be legal, undetectable, safe or natural to the consumers. In fact, the compounds and their biological effects are many times unknown to the consumers and to the physicians as well, while a recently emerging body of data suggests that the somatic and mental consequences of their consumption are frequent, severe, and sometimes even life-threatening. The aims of this paper are to summarize the most important general information about some widely used designer drugs (synthetic cathinones and cannabinoids); to draw attention to present and upcoming trends of substance abuse patterns; and to highlight the importance and consequences of these trends in every day clinical practice, considering the most important and challenging somatic and psychiatric consequences of designer drug abuse.