What is MDPV:
MDPV is a pure white to light-brown hygroscopic, clumpy powder with a slight odor. It has been observed to rapidly degrade and change properties when exposed to air. MDPV is most often snorted. Typical doses are 2 - 5mg (low), 5 - 10mg (moderate), 10+ mg (high) It is active at 3 - 5 mg (half the size of a match head or less). This is nearly impossible to measure with the unaided eye.

Effects of MDPV:
The duration appears to be very dose dependent. The effects of MDPV are usually compared to amphetamines or other stimulants (euphoria, mood lift, elevation in heart rate). After effects include elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, confusion, and stimulation (mental and physical) lasting from 6 to 8 hours, as well as mild depression due to dopamine depletion. Taken in larger doses or for longer stretches, MDPV seems to bring on powerful feelings of paranoia and depression.

Many users have reported obsessive redosing, and some didn't remember that they had taken more.

Is it Addictive?
It is unknown if MDPV is addictive as of yet. It is unknown how or why it might be, but some studies have likened the process by which it reacts within the body to that of Cocaine. The comedown can be harsh and many users report feeling depressed, paranoid, and anxious afterwards, sometimes for days. Users have reported a compulsive desire to continuously re-dose, even following onset of the unpleasant side effects.

Note: That is essentially the textbook definition of addiction.

How Does MDPV Work?
MDPV binds to dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine transporters in the brain, preventing these neurotransmitters from being absorbed quickly. Neurotransmitters that stay available to the brain longer change mood and behaviors. In the case of stimulants like MDPV, MDMA, and even meth and cocaine, the person experiences elevated physical energy, increased talkativeness and lowered inhibitions, and excitement and happiness. These positive feelings are then followed by anxiety, paranoia, and possible violence. The drug hits the brain almost immediately, and effects last between two and four hours. Peak effects occur between 30 and 120 minutes after the substance begins to affect the brain and body.

Why Do People Use MDPV?
MDPV or bath salts are incredibly toxic and overwhelmingly addictive, so much so, that users often return to the drug after experiencing a life threatening dose or hospital visit. The effects of MDPV are so intense that users can return to the state of psychosis, even after the drug is removed from the body. The effects of MDPV can cause permanent brain damage with a single dose. Perhaps the most dangerous side effect of MDPV is the uncompromisingly strong, physical, and psychological cravings it creates. This is what keeps people coming back for more.

While MDPV is addictive, few individuals battle this addiction for long because of the high risk for overdose

Unfortunately, the psychological effects of MDPV can keep a user in an altered state where he isn't aware or concerned about the destruction the drug is having on their, and their loved ones, lives.

MDPV Effects:
It was one of the original substances used in bath salts, and is known for its intense euphoria and relatively short duration. The combination of these two qualities leads some users to compulsively redose as its effects begin to fade, intensifying the drug's already formidable side effects. Abuse may lead to paranoia, psychosis, and cardiac problems with relative ease. Reports of euphoria with MDPV differ. Some users report that euphoria is only experienced the first few times MDPV is used. With further use, euphoria rapidly decreases and disappears, although other effects of MDPV remain. The obsessive nature of MDPV use in some users may result from seeking to recapture the drug's initial euphoria. This behavior is similar to that of users of cocaine. Panic attacks are common. New users frequently believe, after having used MDPV a few times, that they have learned to use the drug safely, and the first panic attack can come unexpectedly.

MDPV

Duration: MDPV is a potent, and extremely compulsive synthetic euphoric stimulant, which shares some empathogenic effects with MDMA. Has a reputation for causing psychosis. MDPV has been found in products sold as "bath salts", "plant food/fertilizer", and in some "ecstasy."
Route	Onset	Duration	After Effects
Tripsit Factsheets
MDPV Basic Information: http://drugs.tripsit.me/MDPV
Oral:	5-20 minutes	2-4 hours	2-48 hours
Insufflated:	5-10 minutes	8-10 hours	2-48 hours
Marquis: Yellow
Effects: Stimulation (mental and physical), euphoria, increased mental clarity, elevated heart rate, headache, confusion, paranoia, loss of apetite, muscle tension

Bath Salts and MDPV:
MDPV is one of the main chemicals found in powders sold as bath salts. The full name of the drug is 3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone. But there are, in fact, several dozen different chemicals that may be found labeled as bath salts. MDPV is just one. MDPV is one of a group of stimulants created in a lab. When sold as bath salts, it may be found in a small foil package or small plastic jar, labeled with a name like "Ivory Wave," "White Dove," "Vanilla Sky" or "Bliss." The packaging will probably say something like "for a refreshing bath, not for human consumption." The package will contain a white or tan powder that may be snorted, smoked, dissolved and injected or ingested.

MDPV History:
MDPV is a white crystalline powder in its pure form, but manufacturing impurities often render it from off-white to pale brown. It's usually sold as a powder, powder-filled capsules or tablets. MDPV was developed by pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim in the mid-1960s as a central nervous system stimulant. But development never got far enough for it to be tested on humans. It first reappeared in internet drug forum discussions around 2005, and became increasingly prevalent in the United States, Europe and elsewhere over the following years. MDPV has been illegal in Australia since 2010, and around the same time in many other jurisdictions, including the United States, Canada and much of Europe, accounting for a decline in its availability. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that MDPV accounted for more than 50% of all synthetic cathinones encountered in law enforcement seizures in the US by 2011. The proportion had dropped to less than 1% by 2015. The recent seizure of more than four kilograms of MDPV imported into Australia suggests a market for the drug still exists.

MDPV Drug Causing 'Epidemic,' Violent Hallucinations:
A new drug nicknamed "monkey dust" has United Kingdom emergency workers on edge after finding users enter a paranoid state that causes them to run into traffic, jump off buildings and hallucinate. The Staffordshire Police Department, about 150 miles from London, received 950 reports about the drug in only three months, and Chief Superintendent Jeff Moore told the BBC that users were "difficult to deal with." The drug not only poses a risk to the user but to other people as well. Users often experience a feeling of being chased, which leads them to attempt an escape by any means necessary. MDPV has also been reported to cause intense, prolonged panic attacks in users. Repeat users have reported bouts of psychosis and a craving or a strong desire or urge to use again.

Monkey dust is methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV), according to the BBC, and the Drug Enforcement Administration explained it's structurally related to cathinone. MDPV is man-made but cathinone occurs naturally.

Warning:
MDPV may cause psychosis, mania and addiction at a significantly higher rate than other stimulants. Due to its unusually long duration, extreme potency, and compulsive nature, it is strongly discouraged to abuse this substance in high doses, multiple days in a row, or in combination with other drugs known to increase the risk of psychosis. Psychotic symptoms from MDPV can include hearing voices, visual hallucinations, urges to harm oneself, severe anxiety, mania, grandiosity, paranoid delusions, confusion, increased aggression, and irritability. The over-excitation of dopamine and noradrenaline caused by MDPV use, combined with MDPV's potential inability to create compensatory serotonergic activity, sets the stage for a number of hostile and psychotic reactions to the drug.

Overdose: The exact lethal dosage of MDPV is unknown and no formal studies have been carried out in humans. For sake of reference, one report placed the lethal dosage for a 39 year old male at 0.4 micrograms per millilitre or greater following the results of a post mortem, but this data is far too individually unique and the variables simply too diverse to derive any kind of meaningful information from it.

World Health Organization 2014:
MDPV has emerged in recent years as a recreational substance with psychostimulant properties. Its preparation for potential use as a central nervous system stimulant has been described in the 1960s in response to the exploration of alternatives for its 4-methylphenyl analogue pyrovalerone and racemic amphetamine. Although it was originally claimed that MDPV showed more favourable properties, such as reduced toxicity when compared to amphetamine, it was not developed as a medicinal product. It has become clear that the presence of MDPV, along with a range of other cathinone analogues, has spread across the globe as a reflection of modern forms of trade within a globalised world. As was the case with many other emerging substances with psychoactive properties, commonly used terms include "legal highs", "bath salts" or "new psychoactive substances" (NPS) in the attempt to highlight the fact that many, if not most, did not originally fall under any legislative control and that detailed data on both pre-clinical and clinical levels were normally less well explored. The number of reports received from some UN member states indicated that MDPV was among the most commonly detected cathinone representatives.

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that the psychoactive and behavioural profile of MDPV, for example demonstrated by drug discrimination and self-administration studies, shows significant similarities to psychomotor stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.

MDPV may be more potent and efficient than cocaine in the ability to induce locomotor activation, tachycardia and hypertension. The capacity of MDPV to potentially induce an excessive dopaminergic tone, in combination with inhibition of norepinephrine uptake and potentially reduced ability to provide compensatory serotonergic transmission, appears to form the basis for a variety of symptoms observed in emergency departments such as severe agitation, violent behaviour, tachycardia, psychosis, profuse diaphoresis, paranoia and anxiety. The currently available research literature indicates that MDPV may show a high potential for abuse.

3,4‐Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) Critical Review Report (PDF 37 pages):
https://www.who.int/medicines/areas/quality_safety/4_13_Review.pdf

EMCDDA - Europol Joint Report 2014:

• MDPV is a synthetic cathinone derivative, which is closely related to pyrovalerone.
• MDPV has been present in the EU drug market since at least November 2008 and has been detected in up to 107 non-fatal intoxications and 99 deaths, particularly in Finland and the United Kingdom.
• There are some indications that it has been sold as a 'legal' or synthetic version of cocaine and it has also been found in tablets resembling 'ecstasy'.
• Large seizures have been made at borders and police operations have targeted its supply. Powder seizures have been reported, including multi-kilogram quantities.

Most, but not all the Member States have control measures at the national level that cover MDPV; however, it continues to be available and this is concerning.

MDPV Joint Reports (PDF 34 pages):
http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/attachements.cfm/att_222592_EN_TDAS14001ENN.pdf

Street Names:
Bath Salts, Ivory Wave, Plant Fertilizer, Vanilla Sky, Energy-1

3,4-Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) (PDF 1 page):
https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/drug_chem_info/mdpv.pdf

Methylenedioxypyrovalerone has no record of FDA approved medical use. It is a stimulant of the cathinone class. Its activity at the dopamine transporter is six times stronger than at the norepinephrine transporter and it is virtually inactive at the serotonin transporter. The primary psychological effects have a duration of roughly 3 to 4 hours, with aftereffects such as tachycardia, hypertension, and mild stimulation lasting from 6 to 8 hours. High doses have been observed to cause intense, prolonged panic attacks in stimulant-intolerant users, and there are anecdotal reports of psychosis from sleep withdrawal and addiction at higher doses or more frequent dosing intervals. It has also been repeatedly noted to induce irresistible cravings to re-administer. The long-term effects of MDPV on humans have not been studied.