Anti Aging Skin Tips

What is the (psycho) active ingredient in banana peels and how does one purify it?

Someone once told be to dehydrate the peels in a gas oven, using only the pilot light. What I got was not exactly flammable.

Public Comments

1. Good grief. you have fallen for an urban myth. There are no psychoactive ingredients in bananas. Another popular theme among naïve LSD users is that it is possible to synthesize LSD from banana peels or other common household foods and chemicals, or that the synthesis of LSD can be easily accomplished in a bathtub. Variants of this legend often circulate on the Internet, and were popular on 'underground' BBSes run by high schoolers before the advent of widespread home Internet access. This myth is sometimes related in a way so as to bolster social standing within a drug-using social group through association with the purported chemist, e.g. "My boyfriend/cousin/friend/roommate makes LSD in the bathtub from banana peels". The actual synthesis requires university training in organic chemistry and requires both expensive laboratory equipment and expensive, carefully controlled precursor chemicals. A possible explanation for this particular urban legend is that it orginated from a pun; to 'trip' on a banana peel could easily become a joke at the expense of the ignorant.
2. G'day Raj L, Thank you for the question. This is an urban myth. LSD requires extensive training in chemistry and a laboratory to develop. The drug was initially developed by Sandoz Laboratories as a drug with psychiatric uses. "LSD" is an initialism formed from the German chemical name of the compound, Lysergsäure-diethylamid. It was first synthesized in 1938 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel as part of a large research program searching for medically useful ergot alkaloid derivatives. Its psychedelic properties were unknown until 5 years later, when Hofmann, acting on what he has called a "peculiar presentiment," returned to work on the chemical. He attributed the discovery of the compound's psychoactive effects to the accidental absorption of a tiny amount through his skin on April 16, which led to him testing a larger amount (250 µg) on himself for psychoactivity. LSD is, by mass, one of the most potent drugs yet discovered. Both subjective reports and pharmacological methods such as receptor binding assays determine LSD to be, per mole, around 100 times more potent than psilocybin and psilocin and around 4,000 times more potent than mescaline. Dosages of LSD are measured in micrograms (µg), or millionths of a gram. By comparison, dosages of almost all other drugs, both recreational and medical, are measured in milligrams (mg), or thousandths of a gram. The dosage level that will produce a threshold hallucinogenic effect in humans is generally considered to be 20–30 μg, with the drug's effects becoming markedly more evident at higher dosages. According to Glass and Henderson's review, black-market LSD is largely unadulterated though sometimes contaminated by manufacturing by-products. Typical doses in the 1960s ranged from 200 to 1000 µg, while street samples of the 1970s contained 30 to 300 µg. By the mid-1980s, the average had reduced to about 100 to 125 µg, lowering still further in the 1990s to the 20–80 µg range. (Lower doses, Glass and Henderson found, generally produce fewer bad trips.) It is not something you should seek to manufacture without knowing what you are doing given that the margin for error is so small. Ask Erowid states "There are a couple of possible sources of this rumor. One suggested source was a prank letter submitted to and published in the Berkeley Barb in March 1967. Donovan's folk classic Mellow Yellow is also cited as an early version of the story. The myth was repeated in the Anarchist Cookbook and has since spread on the web. Regardless of how many places repeat the myth, it is not true." The supposedly psychoactive substance was called bananadine. 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. The author of the Anarchist Cookbook now descibes it as "misguided and potentially dangerous." He tried to have it withdrawn but as he didn't have the copyright, the document is still produced. Regards