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.

File:Thepeel.jpg

A banana peel.

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.

Chemicals in Bananas

Banana peels, however, do contain the nonpsychoactive neurotransmitters tyramine and dopamine in significant amounts that if ingested are enough to affect people taking MAOIs. [1] These chemicals are present in many foods at higher concentrations, and users of MAOIs are counseled to avoid them. The most characteristic effect of the interaction is a massive increase in blood pressure, leading to a hypertensive crisis, and possibly arrhythmia and death. Bananas contain tryptophan which, when ingested, increases levels of serotonin in the body. This can lead to various mood-altering effects (Leathwood and Pollet, 1982) including a reduction in depression (Sainio et al., 1996). As well, Xiao et al. (1998) found that eating just two bananas a day for three days increased levels of serotonin in the blood by 16%. However, there is no mention in the literature of tryptophan having any hallucinogenic effects; it has, in fact, been used to reduce hallucinations in patients with mental disorders (Sainio et al., 1996). It is also debatable whether smoking tryptophan would be successful as a method of administration.

Bananadine in Popular Culture

Donovan's hit single "Mellow Yellow" was released the same month as the Berkeley Barb hoax, and for years it was (wrongly) assumed "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 "Thirty-Five Year 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.

References

• Leathwood, P.D. and Pollet, P. (1982) "Diet-induced mood changes in normal populations" J. Psychiat. Res. 17(2):147-154

• Sainio, E.L., Pulkki, K. and Young, S.N. (1996) "L-Tryptophan: Biochemical, nutritional and pharmacological aspects" Amino Acids 10:21-47
• Xiao, R., Beck, O. and Hjemdahl, P. (1998) "On the accurate measurement of serotonin in whole blood" Scand. J. Clin. Lab. Invest. 58: 505-510

External links

• Sniggle.net Article featuring a fake Bananadine recipe
• Straight Dope Article detailing the history of the Bananadine hoax