That Time David Letterman Accidentally Smoked Animal Tranquilizer

David Letterman retirement announcement on The Late Show in 2015

David Letterman recently revealed a nugget about his younger years. Apparently, the 70-year-old former talk-show host once smoked marijuana laced with an animal tranquilizer. In a radio interview, Letterman chalked the experience up to an accident he made at a house party a long time ago. Letterman said he did not even know what the drug was when a woman at the party told him about the weed's unusual flavor. Letterman said he thought the weed merely had a unique taste, but the woman at the party clarified,

'No, that's PCP.' And I said, not wanting to be a complete dope, 'Oh, what's PCP?' And she says, 'Oh, it's animal tranquilizer.'

In the interview on The Howard Stern Show, David Letterman said the mistake happened not long after he moved to California years ago. Letterman was at his friend, George Miller's house party. People at the gathering offered him marijuana. Because Letterman was new in town, he assumed smoking weed was what everybody there did, so he took a couple of hits.

The woman at the get together asked Letterman if he could taste a minty flavor in the weed. Letterman confirmed that he could, and at first he thought it was a unique flavor of pot. When the woman explained, Letterman became anything but tranquil. He told the people he had some letters to write, and he immediately got out of the situation. He said,

I just thought, 'What? I don't want ... why?' I just thought, 'Do you need that animal tranquilizer?'

Howard Stern then acknowledged that he, too, used to experiment with different recreational drugs that had traces of other substances in them. However, Stern said he had not done it in years. He said,

We didn't even have any regard for what someone might lace that thing with or spray all over it.

In the months since leaving CBS in 2015, David Letterman's appearance has changed quite a bit, and he has embraced a bohemian look with a full beard. In fact, the whole conversation about Letterman's negative experience with marijuana began because Howard Stern seemed to presume Letterman was a regular weed smoker (maybe because of his new laid-back look).

David Letterman clarified that he does not smoke pot anymore, but he said he used to smoke weed on occasion. Howard Stern asked if Letterman had bad experiences with pot, so Letterman maneuvered into the conversation about the PCP-laced marijuana.

It has been two years since David Letterman handed the reins of The Late Show over to Stephen Colbert. Letterman racked up an impressive 33 years and 6,028 episodes as the show's host. Now Letterman is promoting his awesome new show, which is a series of interviews on Netflix. The show pairs him with other famous faces for "in-depth conversations" similar to this one with Howard Stern. Letterman's new show is set to debut sometime in 2018; stay tuned to CinemaBlend and we'll keep you updated as the premiere draws near.