FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1967
Was it all a hippie hoax?
A laboratory apparatus "smoked" dried banana peels for more than three weeks and never did get high, the Food and Drug Administration reported today.
"The Bureau of Science has made an analysis of the smoke obtained from several recipes for dried banana peel and concentrated banana juice," the FDA said. "There were no detectable quantitieg of known hallucinogens in these materials."
The FDA began the laboratory test after its Bureau of Drug Abuse Control received reports that dried scrapings from banana peels were being smoked for their hallucinogenic effect.
The FDA's "smoklng machine" consisted of a series of tubes and retorts which trapped the smoke. The chemical components of the smoke were examined by ultraviolet and infrared spectrophotometric procedures.
Small amounts of known hallucinogens were introduced during some tests to determine whather the substances could be detected in the smoke. The added hallucinogens were recovered and identified. But none was found in the tests of banana peels alone.