Buzzkill: Debunking Fake Drugs & Urban Legends
Adrenochrome, fermented shit, "bananadine", and more — unraveling the truth behind fictional psychedelics & pop-culture hoaxes.
Drug hoaxes are a cornerstone of American life.
After all, how would we know it was Halloween if not for the news stories telling parents to make sure no expensive drugs were freely handed out to all the little children in the neighborhood this year?
It’s not as if there has ever been a year where this fear was any more reasonable, but we honor the traditions of the holiday season regardless.
In the summer, we mark the change of seasons by talking about how people are tricking others into touching fentanyl — an act which (I cannot stress enough) would not even make you high, let alone overdose.
Some years it’s “don’t pull napkins from out of your doorknob” or “don’t pick up any money you see on the ground.”
Pharmaceutical companies have spent years trying to figure out how to deliver drugs like fentanyl through transdermal patches (which still take hours to absorb). Most drugs don’t readily absorb through the skin on their own — even particularly strong ones like fentanyl.
Misinformation comes in many forms. Some of the hoaxes you’ll find below underpin polarizing political narratives; some come from scenes in movies purposely exaggerated for dramatic effect; others are born from pranks or misunderstandings.
Let’s get into some of the most bizarre made-up drugs, urban legends, and hoaxes about drugs:
1. Bananadine: Blasting Off With Banana Peels
Bananadine is a made-up chemical — I mean….obviously, right? But this still wound up in the hugely influential counter-cultural manifesto: The Anarchists Cookbook.
Believe it or not, bananas do contain a small quantity of Musa Sapientum Bananadine, which is a mild, short-lasting psychedelic. There are much easier ways of getting high but the great advantage to this method is that bananas are legal.
-The Anarchists Cookbook, Chapter 1: “Drugs” in a section labeled “Bananas”
Now, to be fair, I don’t think anyone has successfully PROVEN bananas can’t get you high in some way. However, I think many people who tried this one would argue “short-lasting” is a bit of an understatement.
And, if you thought the name should have been a giveaway, wait until you hear the recipe. It involves buying FIFTEEN POUNDS of bananas, peeling, and (for some reason) eating them all — somewhere around 45 bananas.
Afterward, you’re supposed to prepare the peels using the following steps:
Scraping the “insides of the peels” to collect them all together
Boiling them in a large pot for 3–4 hours with water until it’s a “solid paste consistency”
Spreading it on a cookie sheet to dry in the oven for 20—30 minutes
It’s pretty easy to look at this and feel like the inventors of this hoax were trying desperately to make it clear it wasn’t real.
They created a 5-hour process for creating “about one pound” of a “fine black powder” and included “eat fifteen pounds of bananas” in it. If that wasn’t enough, you’re supposed to smoke “three or four cigarettes” of the burnt banana pulp to feel the effects.
I feel like my friend is next to me, trying to convince me I’ll eventually get high off smoking weed stems (you won’t, btw). “No, you just have to roll 3 more joints of it and it’ll work.”
2. Jenkem: Fermented Human Excrement
On September 26th, 2007, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office reported on a new drug threatening the safety of youth in our great nation. They cited the compelling evidence of *checks notes* an email from a single person telling them of another story from their child regarding several other conversations the child claims to have had.
And not a moment too soon, in my opinion.
They got ahead of this new deadly poop drug and provided parents the slang terms for them so they could stay current. These terms — again, given freely by the sheriff’s department — were “Winnie, Shit, Runners, Fruit from Crack Pipe, Leroy Jenkems (my personal favorite), Might, Butthash (VERY close second), and Waste.”
The history of this drug was said to involve children in Africa gathering around sewage sites to ferment human waste and get high. And, if reading that didn’t make you feel weird, I’m going to need you to re-read it slower.
Eventually, the original poster of the photos included in the bulletin came out to tell everyone it was made up. “I never inhaled any poop gas and got high off it,” he’s quoted as saying.
3. “Cannibalism/Zombie Drug” Myths
Many of us are familiar with the story that came one month before this one, but the correction made far fewer waves. With this story, bath salts joined a long line of drugs said to “turn you into a zombie” or reveal cannibalistic tendencies.
Shortly after this story ran, a short run of others went on to question whether the weed was the reason behind the cannibalism. This echoes back to the early 20s and 30s when cannabis stories ran amuck in newspapers about how the “locoweed from Mexico” was going to endanger our white youth and make them murderous, ravenous heathens.
Similar stories are out there for PCP, LSD, cocaine (powder and crystal), and more.
So let’s put this one to rest already:
Zombies are made-up creatures we use to turn drug users into fanatical beasts instead of humans within our minds.
Cannibals do, have, and will exist in the future — but we currently don’t know of a drug that makes a person become one.
We’re doing this even today with xylazine — a dangerous cutting agent/contaminant often found in street drugs. While it’s true xylazine can slow the healing process of wounds, media sensationalism is turning this into the “decaying flesh of zombified humans.”
In reality, the frequent act of injecting a drug can create sores — the xylazine then slows the healing of those wounds. With appropriate care, a person could continue using xylazine, and their wounds would likely still heal.
However, an open wound in an unsanitary environment can lead to infection and worsen the problem. Stories turning this nuanced take into “Xylazine is a zombie drug” are masking the true problem in favor of an easier one.
Instead of trying to prohibit a drug that’s entered the market and proliferates it through a lack of safe supply, we should question why people don’t have access to the healthcare and education they need.
4. Asprin & Coke with Gin
Rumor has it, back in the day, that if you put an aspirin in Coca-Cola along with Gin, it would create a powerful buzz. Some said it had aphrodisiac qualities; others claimed it was profoundly euphoric.
A little-known fact is that a person can enhance this beverage's effect 10-fold by replacing the other two ingredients with more gin.
Aspirin doesn’t do anything to Coke worth mentioning, but people couldn’t simply Google this back then as we can now.
Also important to remember Coca-cola used to use actual coca leaf extract. Perhaps its initial attempt to market as a “medicine” — with small amounts of cocaine from the coca tree and caffeine from the kola nut — is why so many of these hoaxes pop up involving Coke.
While Coke isn’t considered a drug today, people have tried to use it for everything from nausea and flatulence to prophylactic care.
5. Superhuman Drugs
A variation on the idea of zombification is the person who takes a drug and gains superhuman strength. Most commonly associated with methamphetamine, crack, and PCP, it’s actually most frequent with cocaine binges.
The medical name for this condition is excited delirium and it definitely can happen. Dopamine manipulation over long periods with stimulants has consequences, eventually leading to a crisis of heightened paranoia, irrational behavior, and even death.
The “myth” of this condition is two-fold:
Reports often insinuate that a single use of a drug will lead to this, which is very rare
It’s not “superhuman strength”; it’s high levels of adrenaline kicking in because the person fears for their own life
Speaking of adrenaline…
6. Adrenochrome
Adrenochrome is formed inside the human body as the hormone adrenaline oxidizes. Its chemical structure is vaguely similar to other psychoactive compounds, which has led to it being featured in various books, movies, and pop culture as a potent psychedelic drug.
Check out this scene from the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. — “That stuff makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer, man.”
Despite the features in pop culture, there’s no evidence whatsoever that adrenochrome has any psychedelic effects. If you were brave enough to test that conclusion for yourself (which I wouldn’t recommend), you definitely don’t need a human sacrifice to obtain it.
Adrenochrome has been readily synthesized for a long time now. Here’s a store’s pricing for it:
7. Psychedelic Homeopathy
This rumor started sometime in the early 2000s. The idea is that “drug dealers” were applying the same principles used in homeopathy to make drugs more powerful while remaining completely undetectable.
Homeopathy is an alternative medicine invented by Samuel Hahnemann in the 1800s. The central theory of this practice is referred to as “the law of minimum dose.”
He suggested that hyper-diluting substances in water or alcohol while vigorously shaking it (called “succussion”) caused its effects to become stronger.
Homeopathy also relies on a second law — “like cures like” — which suggests that substances that cause a certain symptom can be used to treat those same symptoms.
For example, homeopathic caffeine (a compound that prevents sleep) in small amounts could be used for treating insomnia.
There are 2 major problems with this hoax:
The law of “like cures like” would suggest that the homeopathic version of psychedelics wouldn’t have psychedelic effects themselves — rather, they would block or reverse the effects of other psychedelics.
There has never been any compelling evidence to suggest that homeopathy works any better than placebo.
Hyper-diluting and shaking your LSD in water is not going to make it any stronger — but at least the claim that it’s less detectable still stands…
8. Honorable Mentions
Here are some of the drugs we wanted to include but couldn’t because there’s at least some truth behind their claims:
1. Nutmeg — Nutmeg contains a compound called myristicin, which delivers powerful deliriant effects when smoked. We excluded nutmeg because it’s technically psychedelic (oh, and it’s also toxic). Smoking nutmeg might make you high, but it also might make you dead.
2. Stilton Cheese — Stilton cheese comes from Great Britain. What makes this cheese strange is that it gives users bizarre dreams. It isn’t psychedelic… but there have been studies to confirm its strange dream-inducing effects are true. They appear to occur in roughly 80% of people who consume the cheese.
3. I-Doser — I-Doser is a series of binaural beats and sounds designed to alter consciousness through audio. While this technique is disputed, there has been some research to suggest this alteration in mental state after listening to an entire track.
4. Holotropic Breathing — Holotropic breathing is a technique developed by psychiatrists Stanislav and Christina Grof in the 1970s. It was designed as a way to create a semi-psychedelic experience for the purpose of self-growth and healing, without the need for psychoactive substances. The jury is out on this one about whether the psychoactive effects users experience is a true psychedelic state or the byproduct of asphyxiation and hypoxia.
5. Benadryl — Some people take large doses of Benadryl to achieve a high similar to datura. The active ingredient in Benadryl is DPH (diphenhydramine) which is a potent antihistamine — great for treating allergic reactions, but it can also lead to a frightening delirium in high doses. The problem with this one, like nutmeg, is that high doses of antihistamines like DPH are also highly toxic and have been linked with early-onset dementia.
Further Reading
The Anarchists Cookbook (Book)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Book) / Movie
Collier County Sheriff’s Office Bulletin on Jenkem (via thesmokinggun.com)
The Effect of Adrenochrome and Adrenolutin On the Behavior of Animals and the Psychology of Man
Los Angeles Times Article on the “overrated” claims of Super Human Strength, 1991 by Claire Spiegel
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