Banana peel smoking is a strange and memorable episode from the 1960s counterculture, rooted in satire, misinformation, and the youthful pursuit of altered consciousness. The myth began in 1966 with a satirical article in the Berkeley Barb 1titled “The Great Banana Hoax,” which claimed that the fibrous inner lining of banana peels contained a hallucinogenic compound named “bananadine.”
The article was intended as a joke, but it spread quickly through the underground press and word of mouth, reaching a generation already curious about natural highs and suspicious of official narratives about drugs. As the idea caught on, many young people began scraping, drying,
and smoking banana peels, expecting euphoric or psychedelic effects. One of the most widely circulated stories connected to this fad involves the psychedelic band Country Joe and the Fish. For years, it was said they had handed out banana peels at a concert and encouraged people to smoke them, promoting the illusion that they could get high.
However, according to Country Joe McDonald himself, the band had actually smoked banana peels backstage and thought they were experiencing psychoactive effects—until they realized their water cooler had been spiked with LSD. In retrospect, the banana peels had no effect at all, but the LSD in the water had made them believe otherwise.
This misadventure further fueled the banana myth, unintentionally giving it credence among fans and peers. From a scientific standpoint, banana peels contain no psychoactive compounds capable of inducing a high. Investigations at the time, including by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,
found no evidence of any hallucinogenic substance in banana peels. Although bananas do contain compounds like dopamine and serotonin precursors, these cannot cross the blood-brain barrier in a way that produces intoxication when consumed or smoked. Instead, smoking banana peels merely generates harmful smoke byproducts such as tar and
carbon monoxide, offering health risks without any real psychoactive benefit. Still, the notion of “bananadine” persisted, appearing in satirical texts like The Anarchist Cookbook2, often stripped of its original satirical context and presented as a genuine chemical.
Banana peel smoking remains an iconic example of 1960s counterculture mythology—blending satire, naivety, and the desire for legal mind-altering experiences into a story that captured the imagination of a generation. The tale’s endurance highlights the era’s distrust of mainstream institutions, as well as the willingness of people to
experiment with even the most dubious alternatives to prohibited substances. It’s a quirky but telling reminder of how the pursuit of altered states could sometimes lead down hilariously misinformed paths—even when the real high was coming from something else entirely.
Footnotes
- The Berkeley Barb was an underground newspaper founded in 1965 in Berkeley, California, by Max Scherr, a radical journalist and former editor of the Berkeley Daily Gazette. Emerging from the heart of the Free Speech Movement and the counterculture revolution, the Barb became one of the most influential alternative publications of the 1960s and early 1970s, known for its provocative mix of political radicalism, anti-establishment editorials, sexual liberation content, and social satire. It covered anti-Vietnam War protests, civil rights movements, drug culture, and underground arts, often with a confrontational and irreverent tone that appealed to students, activists, and hippies. The paper also famously published the 1966 satirical article “The Great Banana Hoax,” which helped spark the banana peel smoking myth. At its peak, the Berkeley Barb reached circulation figures of over 100,000 but declined by the late 1970s as the political climate shifted and the underground press fragmented. ↩︎
- The Anarchist Cookbook is a controversial underground manual first published in 1971 by William Powell, containing instructions on the manufacture of explosives, weapons, electronic sabotage devices, and methods of civil disobedience. Written during a period of intense political unrest and disillusionment with the U.S. government—particularly over the Vietnam War—it was intended as a protest against state violence and authoritarianism. The book includes both practical and pseudo-scientific content, some of which is dangerously inaccurate or outdated, including entries on drugs, booby traps, and improvised weaponry. Over the years, it has been condemned by law enforcement, educators, and even its author, who later disavowed the work and attempted to have it removed from circulation, citing its irresponsibility and potential to cause harm. Despite this, the book has remained widely available, especially online, and has been controversially linked to a number of violent incidents, though its influence is often exaggerated in media reports. It remains a symbol of radical dissent, freedom of speech debates, and the complexities of underground publishing in America. ↩︎
Further Reading
Sources
- Country Joe “The Banana Affair” https://www.countryjoe.com/banana.htm
- JSTOR “Smoking Banana Peels to Get High Was Briefly a Thing” https://daily.jstor.org/smoking-banana-peels-to-get-high-was-briefly-a-thing/
- Wikipedia “Bananadine” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananadine
- Double Blind “The Absurd History of Smoking Banana Peels” https://doubleblindmag.com/smoking-banana-peels-hoax/
