Bananadine
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Bananadine is a mythical psychoactive substance which is extracted from banana peels. The substance does not exist - A recipe for its extraction from banana peel was originally published in the Berkeley Barb in March 1967.[1] It became more widely known when William Powell reproduced the method in The Anarchist Cookbook in 1970 under the name "Musa Sapientum Bananadine" (referring to the banana's binomial nomenclature).
Over the years, bananadine has become a popular urban myth.
[edit] Bananadine in popular culture
Donovan's hit single "Mellow Yellow" was released the same month as 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, it was featured in the New York Times [2]. For years it was (Stongly) assumed that the song "Mellow Yellow" was the source for this drug. 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). It 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. 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 alludes to this hoax, too. "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.
[edit] References
- ^ Cecil Adams, Straight Dope, April 26, 2002
- ^ New York Times, March 26, 1967, according to Cecil Adams, 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
[edit] External links
- Sniggle.net Article featuring a fake Bananadine recipe
