TIFU by smoking peanut skins

This didn't happen recently, maybe 16 years ago?

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When I was younger I was very heavily into experimenting with various substances. Being a minor with no car however, limited my access to a supply of any sort. Like many teenage boys I was pretty sure I was invincible and willing to try anything.

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I had found a copy of something similar and equally dubious to the Anarchist Cookbook, on it related to drugs. How to refine them, tell their quality, produce them, etc. One particular chapter in the book had a section dedicated to "Lesser Known and Legal Mind Altering Substances."

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What I am about to tell you, if you are well versed in the world of "legal highs," will reveal just how full of shit this "compendium" was. The first entry into legal highs was banana peels. Yup. I'll repeat that for you, banana peels. I've eaten a lot of bananas in my life and never once thought "holy shit, this is some primo stuff; I'm wrecked." But youth is not saturated in logic.

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The instructions called for peeling a banana and then removing the little strands that stick to the inside of the peel and the banana, putting them in a pot, heating until brown, and then smoking the end product. Not a single thing happened, as you probably already assumed. Other than a very unpleasant cough.

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I was not the sort of teenager to be deterred so easily. I figured I must have done something wrong and moved onto the next listed legal high: peanut skins. \_(ツ)_/

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The instructions were far more specific than those for the banana, leading me to believe that this was in fact a legit legal high that I could not fuck up. It called for unroasted and unsalted peanuts that still had the skin. It specifically called for Spanish peanuts. It instructed the user to peel all the skins off the peanuts, let them rest in direct sunlight for 24 hours, then crush and smoke the skins.

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I had a friendly who was equally adventurous who agreed to take the journey with me.

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We met at a local park and sat on the bleachers. We had to have looked suspicious as hell as it was 10:30am on a school day and two kids in pulled over hoodies sitting on a bleacher in an empty park with their backs to the road.

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We decided to flip a coin to see who would go first. I initially called tails but as it was in the air I switched to heads, secretly hoping my friend (we'll call him D.) would lose the coin toss and go first. I should have stuck with tails.

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I loaded up my cheap gas station bowl, the type with a screw on lid, and took a puff. Nothing. I took another puff. Nothing.

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D. swipes the pipe from me saying I must be doing it wrong (how the hell can you fuck up doing something that shouldn't be done?). He takes a couple puffs, looks down at his feet in defeat and utters a "shit" under his breath.

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We looked at each other and then laughed at how ridiculous we had been. I mean we were young, dumb, and full of other stuff but even in the back of our minds I think we knew this was a fruitless endeavor.

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Then it hit, mid laugh. A sort of burning sensation in my chest, like someone had snuffed out cigars all over my lungs.

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"D... D... yo," I said struggling between breaths. "Does your... chest?" I couldn't even finish the sentence.

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I looked in his eyes and realized he was experiencing the same sensation I was.

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We tried to talk to each other to calm ourselves down, but each word felt like napalm filling our lungs.

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Alas, the peanuts were not done with us. After a few agonizing minutes of wondering if we were going to die on the bleachers (and dear lord what our parents would think) the pain subsided.

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"What the fuck was tha..." And suddenly my heart had decided it was going to beat as fast as it could while stabbing itself wildly. I clutched my chest and collapsed.

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"Hey, you..." and then down went D.

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We sat there for what could have been half an hour, clutching at our chests, struggling to breath, trying to get our heart rates lower by trying to think calmly while every alarm in our body was screaming "GAME OVER STUPID."

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During this time people walked by, either with their kids, or dogs. One stopped, looked at us, and called us junkies. They proceeded to tell us we were the scum of the earth and the reason society was collapsing. Very uplifting message when you think you're about to never see your loved ones again.

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Then, almost as quickly as it had come on, it stopped. D. and I looked at each other, knew there was nothing either of us could say at that time. We went our separate ways. We never told our parents and both of us slept for nearly 14 hours once we got home. I have no clue what exactly was happening physiologically other than our bodies threatening to quit due to abuse. I've yet to meet someone else who tried the same thing, but let me tell you: DON'T!

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TL;DR - Young and dumb. Tried smoking peanut skins to get high. May have had a mild heart attack as a result.