AT LEAST THEY’RE HIGH IN K
Bananas and the Psychedelic Experience
In the mid-1960s, a new generation of Americans took a vocal approach to the issues of the day: anti-war sit-ins, free speech protests, civil rights marches—the list goes on. This antiestablishment movement became known collectively as the counterculture phenomenon, in which participants dispensed with many norms and embraced taboos that older generations had avoided. One major taboo was the use of illegal drugs. In fact, recreational drug use—marijuana and LSD in particular—became a hallmark of the movement. The powers that be attempted to curtail these activities, and a nationwide drug debate raged on through the late 1960s and into the 1970s. In October 1970, Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, and the next year, President Richard Nixon called drug use “public enemy number one.”
But before the government took action, the drug world went bananas—literally. In March 1967, the Berkeley Barb, an underground newspaper that was well respected and well read in counterculture circles, published a story about a new way to get high: smoking banana peels. According to the Barb, bananas contained stimulants that, if taken correctly and in high enough amounts, could give you a psychedelic experience similar to taking LSD. Per the Barb, all one had to do was “freeze the peels, break and reduce to a pulp in a blender, put in the oven (low heat, 200 degrees [Fahrenheit]) until it’s dry enough to smoke,” and then start puffing.
Skeptical? You have every reason to be: The report was a lie. The Barb’s editor and publisher, Max Scherr, was trying to make a point. Authorities had been reflexively taking action against anyone and anything related to drugs, and Scherr thought they may believe his report and ban bananas. After all, he reasoned, one can’t have a young, impressionable teenager walking into the local grocery store and leaving with a cheap, potassium-filled snack that, as it turns out, could get him or her high. If LSD was illegal, shouldn’t the equally potent banana be as well?
The police didn’t take the bait—but others did. Many people who wanted to get high took the Barb at its word, and from spring to summer of that year, smoking banana peels was all the rage. Banana peel smoke-ins became common among the “make love, not war” crowd. Some more entrepreneurial types even began selling dried banana powder and similar products made of processed banana peels. The so-called “active ingredient” in banana peels even got a name of its own: “bananadine.” Around the country, members of the countercultural movement were reporting the same: If you wanted a cheap, easy high, smoke up some banana peels.
Ultimately, the Food and Drug Administration investigated the claims and found that there was nothing hallucinogenic in banana peels, smoked or otherwise. Any claims to the contrary were likely the placebo effect in action.