U.S. Navy + Dubstep = BATH SALTS: It’s not a fad… it’s a NIGHTMARE

A few days ago someone special stopped me and insisted I watch the following PSA.

What ensued was a 6 minute cautionary tale following a young naval officer who scores some bath salts in the mail, does a FAT line, then proceeds to go bowling with his girl.  Things are fine until they aren't, which is usually the case in life and with drugs.  Bowling goes bad after he starts to hallucinate.  He punches his girl in the face and goes on a rampage to throbbing dubsteb beats.  General bad times unfold and our naval officer ends up strapped to a bed in a hospital.

Cut to Lieutenant George Loeffer, Psychiatric Resident at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.  He breaks down what bath salts are, where to get them and how to ingest them. He also tells us that the paranoia and psychosis that people experience can linger and that bath salt users can make schizophrenic.  He says people turn to bath salts because of "stresses in their lives" and that these drugs magnify those problems. Word.


Bath salts (also nicknamed plant food) is slang for a group of stimulant hallucinogens that contain methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) or mephedrone — which prevent the reuptake of norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin. Keeping the brain drenched in those feel-good chemicals that can lead to euphoria — but also to seizures, tachycardia, paranoia, hallucinations, violence and death.

The PSA, which has 523,996 + views on Youtube, feels like when an old person thinks they know what’s hip.  All of the collaborators behind this absurd video that rehashes the same old fear-based drug prevention campaigns that haven’t been effective in their twenty years of existence should be put on a space ship and sent to the sun.  In trying to be hip and speak the same language as Millennials, they may have actually made an enticing commercial for bath salts.

This is particularly alarming as multiple sources report that usage of the synthetic drug is on the rise across the country.  This makes the Navy’s invocation of corny gimmicks even more puzzling. 

To the best of my knowledge, the general public associates bath salts with chewing someone’s face off in the street like a zombie.  Various accounts from Erowid.com contributors pretty much confirms the same.  So why not get real about the social, financial, emotional and physical "stresses" that contribute to drug abuse.

This is a major fail by the Navy.  They missed an opportunity to make an authentic PSA with real advice on what to do when turning to schizophrenia inducing drugs seems like the only good thing to do.