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Trump’s pick for surgeon general sells supplement with ingredient banned by Pentagon
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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For anyone who doesn’t want to read the whole article, the ingredient is kava root.
I hate to agree with someone from the Trump administration but kava is far from "snake oil". It's considered nature's Xanax for a reason! I'm personally not a huge fan of the effects and yeah, it causes some liver damage if you use it too often and frequently but so do a lot of things (looking at you alcohol). This plant should not be banned or illegal in my opinion.
If anyone's interested, a guy named Metta Beshay has plenty of extensive videos about Kava including him traveling to Kava farms and drinking it.
The Pentagon can't ban alcohol though because hegseth will start getting the shakes
Him and that googly eyed mother fucker that runs the FBI
The only shakes Kegsbreath has are boozy ones.
I agree—I’m drinking tea with some kava in it right now.
On the other hand, from people I know who worked in Army medical I get the impression that soldiers will find ways to abuse anything they possibly can.
I worked in toxicology, and there wad study on THC and gas-station analog use and driving impairment that was done near a military base. Every time it's referenced in conferences, the presenter ALWAYS says "if you're in the military and have illegal drugs in you're system, it will ruin your life. They also know what drugs and metabolites are tested for, so they make sure it isn't in their system during random drug tests" *wink-wink*
There was an interestingly large number of people with weird THC-analogs in their system for this study specifically.
When I was serving we did a LOT of those research psychedelics like 2C-B and 2C-I. But if we had a long weekend Molly was the preferred choice. Spice was just barely on anyone's radar, and we didn't really trust it lol.
As you shouldn't. It was often mixed in a concrete mixer with random plant matter (hopefully at least hemp) and a jar of chemicals from China, then packaged with cool graphics. It was a ridiculously high percentage of the time that what was in the package wasn't what it was on the label. Per brand you could expect it to be consistent...ish, but it was something like >50% of the time it was not what it said it was.
It was basically whatever analog wasn't illegal at the time in China was produced then shipped to the US, and the sketch packagers didn't give a shit what it actually was.
It wasn't hemp. The plant name may come to me later but it was commonly something else. I think it started with or had a D in it, and it had little yellow flowers
But yes, that shit was no fun. I've tried a few "spice" or "incense" back in the day. I can tell you some of those highs were absolutely no fun. I was high as shit but at times was too scared to try and move or do anything. "I don't want to try to move because I don't want to try to move and then find out I can't" and like "the person in the show is actually looking at me". Watching a show, live or animated, if the person on screen turned their head in my mind I saw their features pop out of the screen and then meld back in
I've never done psychedelics so that's the closest to tripping I've been but fucking hell that shit did my head in
Edit: ok, so the plant I commonly saw used as the smokeable herb was damiana
Also I forgot another term was "potpourri"
While trying to search the plant I came across the name of the shit that fucked me up, "mr happy or mr nice guy"
I love kava tea. There's not enough in the tea bag to be intoxicating, but it definitely relaxes me and I enjoy the numbing sensation I get from drinking it. It's dumb as hell that it's banned
Kava is wonderful and potent when brewed traditionally