The 1960s Banana Peel Drug Hoax

In 1967, thousands of people believed they could get high by smoking banana peels. The story was a deliberate hoax intended to trick authorities and demonstrate how easily the public could be misled.

This urban legend started when an underground newspaper published a fake recipe for extracting a hallucinogen called bananadine from fruit skins. While the chemical does not exist and smoking peels has no psychoactive effect, the story went viral before the internet even existed. It became a cultural touchstone that proved how quickly misinformation can spread once people want to believe a trend is real. The myth persists today as one of history's most famous practical jokes.