Bananadine

Bananadine is a fictional psychoactive substance which is allegedly extracted from banana peels. A recipe for its extraction from banana peel was originally published as a hoax in the "Berkeley Barb" in March 1967. [Cecil Adams, [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020426.html Straight Dope] , April 26, 2002 ] It became more widely known when William Powell, believing it to be true, reproduced the method in "The Anarchist Cookbook" in 1970 under the name "Musa Sapientum Bananadine" (referring to the banana's binomial nomenclature).

Researchers at New York University have found that banana peel contains no intoxicating chemicals, and that smoking it produces only a placebo effect. Over the years, bananadine has become a popular urban legend.

Bananadine in popular culture

Donovan's hit single "Mellow Yellow" was released a few months prior to the "Berkeley Barb" hoax, and in the popular culture of the era, the song was assumed to be about smoking banana peels. Shortly after the "Berkeley Barb" and the song, the myth was featured in the "New York Times" ["New York Times," March 26, 1967, according to Cecil Adams, [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020426.html Straight Dope] , April 26, 2002; but see also Louria, Donald (1967), "Cool Talk About Hot Drugs," "The New York Times Magazine", August 6, 1967 p. 188] . For years it was (wrongly) assumed that the song "Mellow Yellow" was the source for this myth. In an October 2005 interview on the National Public Radio program "Fresh Air", Donovan said that it was actually the folk singer Country Joe McDonald who had started the rumor in San Francisco, one week before the release of Donovan's song. Mr. McDonald has told a similar story, including the side effect of a shortage of bananas in all of Berkeley following the concert that started the rumor, as all available bananas were bought by concert-goers for experimentation (2003, Palms Playhouse, Winters, CA). The myth was brought to attention once more in the late 1980s, when the satiric punk group The Dead Milkmen released a song concerning the effects of smoking banana peels. Even the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigated.

In the inner sleeve of "Experience", the first full-length album by British band The Prodigy, Leeroy Thornhill is quoted saying "Respect to everyone I've met, you're welcome round to smoke some Banana skins anytime."

The Ray Stevens song "Old Hippie Class Reunion" alludes to this hoax. There is a recurring exchange: "What happened to it?" "We smoked it..." about increasingly improbable things, until at the end of the song the two characters enthusiastically consider smoking the entire contents of a pet store.

The Frank Zappa song "Blue Light" from "Tinsel Town Rebellion" likewise alludes to the hoax: "That was back in the days when you used to / Smoke a banana / You would scrape the stuff off the middle / You would bake it / You would smoke it / You even thought you was getting ripped from it"

Slade also allude to this myth in a more tongue-in-cheek way in "Thanks for the Memory" (from the album of the same name, released 1975) with the line "They said bananas could get you high".

60s garage rock group, The Electric Prunes released a song called "The Great Banana Hoax," featured on their 1967 album "Underground".

The low budget 1980 film "Getting Wasted" includes a scene where cadets at a military school smoke banana peels from a pipe.

The punk band The Dead Milkmen had an album titled "Smoking Banana Peels", with a song by the same name on it. Inside of the album art showed a letter supposedly written by a fan that asks about smoking banana peels.

References

External links

* [http://www.sniggle.net/banana.php Sniggle.net] Article featuring a fake Bananadine recipe