As a former teen, someone who came up before the era of 'just say no', parent of two teens, organizer of community forums on drug abuse among kids, observer and advice giver, I've learned quite a bit. I'm not a certified bonafide expert, but that's never stopped me from shooting my mouth of, so here goes...
To the 'it's just pot' crowd, I can tell you that that phrase is the one cops, counselors, health care workers and teachers dread the most, coming from a parent.
At one of our PEP talks, one of the counselors explained that it's not 'just pot', it's a relationship with intoxication. While there are people who tried marijuana once and never again, and some who made it their drug of choice without trying any others, the vast majority develop the relationship with intoxication, and will try other intoxicants.
If you take away someone's weed, they will try the cough syrup, the vodka, the coke, the heroin, whatever will get them high. When I was a kid, someone told me that you could get high smoking a banana leaf. I thought they meant the skin. Man those things are hard to light!
I am not an anti-drug crusader, but rather, would love to see a world where kids make it through to adulthood without getting sidetracked, addicted or overdosing on drugs. There's plenty of time to dope it up once one reaches adulthood.
I'd have no objection to the guy making and eating his brownies and sharing them with friends, but to bring them to school and sell them to kids, that has to be taken very siriously.
Your talking about bananadine. You were right, its the peel, but you dont just roll the peel up and try to light it. You would take the peel and scrape all the insides of the peel off with a sharp knife. Then you would add the scrapings to a large pot of water and boil for 3-4 hours. Then you take it out of the water and spread on a cookie sheet to bake for 20 mins. You would end up with a fine black powder that you could smoke.
It was all just a hoax though. It was designed to raise questions about the ethics of making psychoactive drugs illegal and prosecuting those who took them; "what if the common banana contained psychoactive properties, how would the government react?".
