The Navy's Anti-Bath Salts Video Is Even More Ridiculous Than You'd Think

In an attempt to deter its service members and the general public from indulging in the latest strange drug craze, the U.S. Navy has released a six-minute PSA. Except it's making bath salts look a lot more silly than scary.

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In an attempt to deter its service members and the general public from indulging in the latest strange drug craze, the U.S. Navy has released a six-minute public service announcement detailing all the terrible things bath salts can do to you. Except it's making them a lot more silly than scary. The dubstep and SyFy channel-style graphics don't exactly help. Take a look for yourself:

We just have so many questions. Like, did anyone in the Navy actually do bath salts to get this representation right? If not, is this just a loose interpretation of what bath salts are supposed to do? Does it really induce Skrillex-knockoff music to start pumping in your head?

Judging from comments and Twitter, seem to be that the Navy went a bit overboard. And here's the reception so far on YouTube:

In all seriousness though, the Navy had the best intentions. Synthetic drugs have been a thorn in the military's side since November, when 11 sailors were discharged for using Spice, a synthetic drug that mimics marijuana. And the Navy has been targeting bath salts since at least 2011, reports DC Military.com. And, of course, the PSA arm of the Navy is probably just trying to let all its servicemen (and women) know about this "scary" stuff — how bath salts will turn you into a terrible person who likes terrible Dub Step music and steals single french fries while punching your demon girlfriend. And to make sure you didn't miss that point, there is an expert, Lt. George Loeffler, a Psychiatry Resident at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, telling you that all the stuff you saw in the first two minutes of the video is, in fact, supposed to be quite bad. Loeffler says:

When people are using bath salts, they’re not their normal selves ... They’re angrier. They’re erratic. They’re violent and they’re unpredictable…. People will start seeing things that aren’t there, believing things that aren’t true.

That, by itself, might have been more effective. Or, you know, just showing the real-life cannibal attack, which was a lot more horrific than the whole thing.

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.