Viral Video Warns How Easily Predators Can Drop Date Rape Drugs

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A new video issues a scary warning for women going out to bars, showing just how easily men can put a date rape drug in their drinks – no matter what precautions they take.

The video was posted to YouTube by Joseph Saladino – better known as Joey Salads. The 21-year-old State Island social experimenter wore a red Buffalo David Bitton T-shirt as he warned how easy it was to drug a girl – given the crisis of date rape.

He sits down next to a woman in broad daylight in a waterside bar and makes small talk. The woman gets up to go to the bathroom and the man with her begins talking to someone else, while Salads appears to drop something in the drink.

When Salads sits back down, he says, "Don't drink that."

"Because your friend wasn't watching, I was able to slip a drug in the drink," he says.

"Are you kidding me?" the other man says.

"I didn't do it for real," Saladino says. "We've got cameras set up, and I'm doing an experiment to show how easy it is to drug a girl. So because of your carelessness…. Now you guys know to be careful in the future."

Salads does it again at an outdoor table. A third time, Salads is alone with a woman and appears to drop something in her drink when she turns her head for a split second.

Salads told CBS2's Weijia Jiang he expected to be easy.

"I just wanted to get the awareness out there," he said.

Salads' warning clip about roofies has gotten more than 11 million hits on YouTube, and many reactions of shock.

"Legitimately, that could have happened to anyone sitting at any bar," one woman said.

"It's very scary – of course it is. And you can't prevent it," said Tanesha Branford of Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. "How can you stop that kind of thing?"

Security expert and former NYPD Detective John Wilde said people can stop the crime of opportunity.

"Nobody's paying attention to the stranger who comes up behind them," Wilde said.

Wilde said you should never turn your back on a stranger in a bar, or leave a drink unattended.

"You just have to be aware of what's going on around you," he said.

Salads used Advil pills for his demonstration, but he said he hopes they realize "it's a very easy, real thing that happens."

Salads was also behind a recent viral video showing just how easily children can be lured. After getting permission from parents, he pretends to lure children away with his dog named Donuts as bait – and documents parents' shock as the kids agree to walk away with him.