Many debates about restrictions on personal choices in the military often devolve to what the military is allowed to do with regard to “victimless” crimes or things that are legal outside the military.

The Air Force — notably, not the Department of Defense — recently changed a regulation to expand the prohibition on “mood altering substances.”

The revised language makes punitive the prohibition in the current Air Force Instruction regarding the ingestion of any substance, other than alcohol or tobacco, for the purpose of altering mood or function…

The guidance cited the designer drug “spice,” salvia divinorum, inhalants, household chemicals, solvents and prescription drug abuse.

As noted earlier, the Air Force has already discharged Airmen over use of “spice,” something which is legal in most jurisdictions in the United States.

To remind those who quickly forget, the US military can — and does — regulate personal conduct, even if that conduct is legal outside of the military and even if that “private choice” is believed not to affect any other person.