Many urban legends and misconceptions about drugs have been created and circulated among young people and the general public, with varying degrees of veracity. These are commonly repeated by organizations which oppose all classified drug use, often causing the true effects and dangers of drugs to be misunderstood and less scrutinized. The most common subjects of such false beliefs are LSD, cannabis, and PCP. These misconceptions include misinformation about adulterants or other black market issues, as well as alleged effects of the pure substances.
Alcohol
Urban legends about alcohol.
Absinthe is a hallucinogen
Absinthe has often been portrayed as a dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen, which gave birth to the term "absinthism". The chemical compound thujone, which is present in the spirit in trace amounts, was blamed for its alleged harmful effects. By 1915, absinthe had been banned in the United States and in much of Europe, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria-Hungary, yet it has not been demonstrated to be any more dangerous than ordinary spirits. Recent studies have shown that absinthe's psychoactive properties (apart from those attributable to alcohol) have been exaggerated.
Recreationally intoxicated elephants from fermented marula fruit
South African legends, recorded as early as the 1830s by naturalist Adulphe Delegorgue, describe elephants seeking out the fermented fruit of the marula tree, and showing signs of intoxication, including increased aggression, after doing so. This behavior was controversially depicted in the 1974 documentary Animals Are Beautiful People: the crew of the film reportedly staged the scene, either by soaking the fruit in alcohol before allowing animals to eat it, or by simply injecting the animals with a veterinary anesthetic to elicit symptoms of intoxication. Studies have concluded that it is very unlikely that an elephant could eat enough of the fruit in a day to become drunk; the study instead attributed their aggression to the value of the trees as a food source. Yet it may be possible that another intoxicant is at play – elephants are also known to eat the bark of the tree, which often contains toxic beetle pupae.
Tobacco Menthol cigarettes contain fiberglass A common rumor states that menthol cigarettes or their filters contain fiberglass. In reality, modern cigarette filters are made of a fibrous form of cellulose acetate, which can resemble fiberglass when pulled apart. In the past, some cigarettes did contain asbestos in their filters. Another version of this myth states that chewing tobacco contains fiberglass, which allegedly creates small cuts in the mouth, enhancing nicotine absorption.
Some cigarette brands are owned by the KKK Another urban legend states that some cigarette brands (most often Marlboro, Camel, and Kool), or menthol cigarettes in general, are owned by, manufactured by, or otherwise have connections to the Ku Klux Klan, or are intended to harm black people specifically. There is no credible evidence for any connection between cigarettes and the KKK.
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) Some of the strangest urban legends told are those about lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), a potent psychedelic drug that gained popularity in several countries in the 1960s and 1970s, and experienced a resurgence in the mid-2010s to present. The drug's relation to the 1960s counterculture was likely part of the reason for such legends.
Babysitter places baby in the oven while high on LSD
This is an unverifiable drug-scare story dating to the 1960s of a hippie babysitter girl putting a baby in the oven and a turkey in the bassinet. It has been debunked by Snopes.com. This myth is parodied in The Simpsons episode "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson",episode 4F21, The Simpsons Archive - ref date: May 29, 2010 in which the children go on a school field trip to a "scared straight" wax museum at the local police station. One exhibit contains a wax dummy of a hippie woman eating a sandwich with a baby in it. Chief Wiggum says "That's right, she's got the munchies for a California Cheeseburger!"
In May 2009, partial ostension of this legend may have occurred when a 30-year old Ohio man high on PCP allegedly tried to put his newborn baby into a conventional oven, only to be stopped in time by the baby's mother. Also, in March 2010, a Kentucky man put his five-week-old baby in an oven (without turning it on, and without any injury) while drunk and high on marijuana (which he had smoked earlier that night) that he alleged made him feel strange and suspected was laced with a different drug that made him hallucinate; he was also tired from working. In 2005, China Arnold murdered her near month-old baby with a microwave oven, but she claimed that she was under the influence of alcohol, not LSD.
There are a limited number of cases reported in which babies were put into microwaves, though these cases were not known to involve any drugs, and were instead often cases of deliberate infanticide. However, there have been no known cases of microwaving (or baking) babies involving LSD specifically, or any other psychedelic drug, including cannabis. However, there have been many reported cases of psychotic violence under the influence of PCP. PCP, a dissociative anesthetic, is unrelated to LSD, a psychedelic drug.
Bad acid A "bad trip" is easily caused by an expectation or fear of ill effects, which may later be blamed on "bad acid". This legend was made famous at the 1969 Woodstock festival, when concert-goers were warned to stay away from "the brown acid", which was allegedly bad.No brown acid: Woodstock anniversary concert draws a cell phone crowd, Associated Press Archive - August 15, 1998
One possible reason people believe that they had "bad acid" could be because they were simply sold a much higher dose than usual, which is not uncommon due to the inherent lack of quality control of illicit drugs, and with LSD in particular being effective at microgram rather than milligram doses. The stronger the dose, the stronger and potentially more anxiety-provoking the trip can get. But in the case of the "brown acid", the LSD - which does not evaporate - was dissolved in a liquid that did evaporate, thus increasing the concentration and the dose per drop.
However, drugs sometimes falsely represented by sellers as LSD in the 1970s were actually PCP, amphetamine, or other drugs that have quite different, and often unfavorable, effects from LSD, causing unwitting users to incorrectly attribute a "bad trip" to LSD. There are now many research chemicals (DOB 2C-I, DOC, DOI, etc.) that can be nearly indistinguishable from real LSD before use, and thus can be easily confused with "bad acid". Some of these, such as 25I-NBOMe, are even potent enough for psychoactive doses to fit on blotter paper, and may occasionally be sold as LSD when the latter is scarce. The idea of adulterating blotter LSD with these chemicals, however, has no known basis in fact.
"Bananadine" LSD
The false claim states that it is possible to synthesize LSD or some similar hallucinogenic drug called "bananadine" from banana peels or other common household foods and chemicals. The actual synthesis of LSD usually requires advanced knowledge and experience in organic chemistry and requires both expensive laboratory equipment and expensive, carefully controlled precursor chemicals.
Originating from a recipe originally published as a hoax in the Berkeley Barb in March 1967,Will smoking banana peels get you high? The Straight Dope, April 26, 2002 variants of this legend often circulate on the Internet and were popular on BBSs well before the widespread availability of Internet access through William Powell's The Anarchist Cookbook. This book claimed "Musa sapientum Bananadine" was a mild psychoactive drug found in banana peels. The slang terms "mellow yellow" and "saffron" (for the color of the peels) were borrowed from the 1966 Donovan song, "Mellow Yellow", perhaps because the phrase "electrical banana" is mentioned in one of the lines. According to The Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll, Donovan claimed he was actually referring to a banana-shaped vibrator.
Blue star tattoos
This legend frequently surfaces in American elementary and middle schools in the form of a flyer that has been photocopied through many generations, which is distributed to parents by concerned school officials. It has also become popular on Internet mailing lists and websites. This legend states that a temporary lick-and-stick tattoo soaked in LSD and made in the form of a blue star, or of popular children's cartoon characters, is being distributed to children in the area in order to get them addicted to LSD. The flyer lists an inaccurate description of the effects of LSD, some attribution (typically to a well-regarded hospital or a vaguely specified "adviser to the president"), and instructs parents to contact police if they come across the blue star tattoos. No actual cases of LSD distribution to children in this manner have ever been documented. LSD is not addictive, and it is unlikely to be abused by an unwitting user. Therefore, there is no plausible motivation for a drug dealer to distribute LSD in this manner.
Legally insane There is an urban legend that a person who has used LSD more than seven times is automatically declared legally insane. The same claim is often suggested with large doses, the difference being that the person is considered psychotic only for the duration of the trip. An extension of this legend is that a person who does LSD more than "X number of times" is permanently disqualified from the military as a result of being "legally insane", a version which was likely inspired by wishful thinking of drug-using draft dodgers in the 1960s. But no such law exists, at least not in the United States. However, the United States Air Force has regulations limiting and prohibiting recruitment of pre-service drug users, including prohibition of proven or admitted LSD users.
A version of this legend was repeated as fact on TV's Dragnet series in 1967, in an episode revolving around the use of LSD before it was made illegal. The script described a shipment containing "one pound of LSD [tabs], enough to turn the entire population of Los Angeles into dangerous psychotics" on the premise that one dose made a person legally insane due to the recurrence of completely unpredictable flashbacks throughout the user's life after a single dose.
LSD causes genetic mutations Beginning in 1967, studies raised concerns that LSD might produce genetic damage or developmental abnormalities in fetuses. However, these initial reports were based on in vitro studies or were poorly controlled and have not been substantiated. In studies of chromosomal changes in human users and in monkeys, the balance of evidence suggests no increase in chromosomal damage. For example, white blood cells of people who had been given LSD in a clinical setting were examined for visible chromosomal abnormalities; overall, there appeared to be no lasting changes. Several studies have been conducted using illicit LSD users and provide a less clear picture. Interpretation of this data is generally complicated by factors such as the unknown chemical composition of street LSD, concurrent use of other psychoactive drugs, and diseases such as hepatitis in the sampled populations. It seems possible that the small number of genetic abnormalities reported in users of street LSD is either coincidental or related to factors other than a toxic effect of pure LSD. A 2008 medical review concluded, "The available data suggest that pure LSD does not cause chromosomal abnormalities, spontaneous abortions, or congenital malformations." Another large study, published in 2022, found no evidence to support the urban myth.
Man permanently thinks that he is a glass of orange juice