A friend of mine recently proposed that smoking banana peels gets you high because they contain high levels of THC, that holy grail chemical of mary jane lovers the worls over. Supposedly, putting your 'nana peels in the broiler for a while somehow purifies them, resulting in a THC high like none other. I tend to think she’s been smoking too much produce… what say you, teeming millions?
No. I believe this urban legend was mostly spread by the notorious Anarchist’s Cookbook. That book has a lot of stupid and even dangerous stuff in it despite its reputation.
Your friend has heard some variation of the rumor. Usually the psychoactive chemical is called ‘bananadine’ or some such. I’ve never heard claims of THC before.
Sorry, forgot a cool URL.
Quite right space otter Smoking bananna peels comes from the anarchist cookbook. And it is just one way they propose. Others include the red lining around unbaked peanuts, and nutmeg just to name a couple. But when it comes to bananna peels it is actually the inside of the peel that needs to be shaved off then broiled or toasted not the whole peel itself. And by the way it doesn’t work…also–> The whole peel itself may be dangerous depends on if there is a high concentration of fertilizer on it. Better off just sticking to the good Ol mary jane… 
Ah, yes. All that mis-spent youth is paying off in spades here on the SDMB.
No, experience tells me that dried bananna peels do not get you high.
Furthermore, you might as well not bother smoking peanut skins, mushrooms, rotten cabbage (“soapium”), toad skins, saspirella root, meprobamate or valium. They don’t work, either, and might hurt you for your trouble.
Instead, why not join a soccer league and get high on life! That’s what manhattan would prefer you to do.
Space Otter is right. The UL was aided by Donovan’s hit song “Mellow Yellow.” Abbie Hoffman claimed a similar UL had folks stuffing hot peppers up their butts in hopes of a psychedelic experience. Likewise, neither peanut shells nor catnip will stone you.
–Nott
Nutmeg can and does produce a high…
From stoeies I’ve heard, the hallucinations can be quite intense.
http://www.erowid.org/plants/nutmeg/nutmeg_faq.shtml
I wasted a lot of time with that stupid book. Fortuneately I was afraid to try most of it. Who wrote that book and why?
It was fun roasting stuff in the kitchen, but I never got high.
No. it’s not quite an UL, and neither is the toads thing.
Both toads of the Genus Bufo and bananas contain a substance called bufotenine. Bufotenine is very definitely psychoactive and is produced by toads as a deterent against predators. Bufotenine is itself chemically very close to psilocin ((N,N-dimethyl-5-hydroxytryptamine (bufotenine), N,N-dimethyl-4-hydroxytryptamine (psilocin)) and psilocin is one of the main ingredients in hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Of course unlike psilocin, which is well known for inducing hallucinations bufotenine’s psycoactive effect is to induce a state of psychosis although it is hallucinogenic at very high doses. Unfortunately it’s often fatal at moderate doses so it’s probably not the best way to get a buzz. There have been numerous people hospitalized for smoking toad skins, licking toads etc. They all reported some sort of high, some of them just prior to being shipped to the morgue.
So it is possible to get some sort of effect from smoking toads, although a ‘high’ it apparently isn’t, and it’s hideously dangerous. It should also be possible to get the same high by extracting the bufotenine from bananas. However I suspect that the amount present would require 40,000 pounds of bananas to get one hit, and I don’t think you could do it by just boiling banana skins.
Yeah, bufotenine is generally considered a bad trip. I doubt there is any practical way to extract enough from bananas to get high.
More useful is the skin excretions of the Colorado River Toad (Bufo alvaris). --Don’t-- kill the toad and smoke the skin as per the Anarchist’s Cookbook (not suprisingly, it’s wrong again). I’ve read the process, never tried it. I’m sure those who are interested can find further info on the web.
Cecil on nutmeg