As a longtime owner of the Anarchist Cookbook (1971), I'm quite familiar with the myth that smoking dried banana peels will get you high. Turns out though, there was a similar bit of urban hippie lore from the era about the "Jackson Illusion Pepper," named after its inventor (discoverer?). According to Drugs From A to Z: A Dictionary (1969) by Richard R. Lingeman, smoking a cigarette through a rotten green pepper was rumored to deliver a psychedelic experience.
Weird Universe points to a 1967 issue of the underground newspaper The East Village Other that features the recipe. "Columbia [university] students swear by it," the paper reports. Thing is, it's the April 1 issue of the newspaper. So, either the kids who tried it were April fools or the squares are the fools for thinking it's a hoax. Here are the instructions:
"Purchase one rotten pepper (must be rotten), and a pack of Pall Mall's (must be Pall Mall's) and use a pepper as a filter for the cigarette by burning a hole in both ends of the pepper…. Cross your fingers and have a happy hallucinogenic."
