Army News, opinions, editorials, news from Iraq, photos, reports - Army Times

Air Force bases ban salvia hallucinogen

Officials at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., are sending thoughts of a “legal high” up in smoke. Both have banned the use of Salvia divinorum, a hallucinogenic plant better known as salvia.

Malmstrom enacted a ban Aug. 6; Hill’s ban started Feb. 9, after a local TV report on salvia’s potential dangers.

Maj. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, Ogden Air Logistics Center commander, “took steps to ban salvia rather than wait for a situation,” said Merrie Schilter-Lowe, a spokeswoman at Hill.

The plant can be smoked, chewed or brewed into tea. Native to the Mazateca region near Oaxaca, Mexico, the plant has been used for hundreds of years by Mazatec Indians in healing and shamanistic rituals. It is currently available for purchase at numerous Internet sites for any would-be visionaries.

Salvia is still a legal substance, though laws restricting its use to differing degrees have been passed in Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Delaware. No attempts to federally declare salvia a controlled substance have been successful.

Related reading

Nightmare herb? (Feb. 2, 2004)

Tales from the Salvia dark side (Feb. 2, 2004)

Editorial: Military must ban Salvia (Feb. 2, 2004)

The Navy and Marine Corps have both banned salvia, but the Air Force has no official policy on it, according to Joann Rumple, a spokesperson at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

According to Lt. Col. (Dr.) James Bennion at Hill, salvia’s effects can be categorized into six levels. The first level involves an increase in relaxation and peacefulness, while the highest level can involve sleepwalking-type behavior, an inability to sense pain and later an inability to remember what has happened.

“Most of this just doesn’t seem compatible with what we’d expect of someone who’s active-duty, supposedly available 24/7,” Bennion said. “They wouldn’t be able to function necessarily at the level we’d want them to.”

Usage or possession at Hill is now punishable up to and including a discharge.