A “square grouper” is a large bale of #marijuana thrown overboard or out of airplanes in South Florida during the 70’s and 80’s. Occasionally, you may spot a square grouper floating offshore or even washed up on beaches today.
It is somewhat of an unofficial Floridian tradition to cut open these bales and run off with as much soggy “sea weed” as you can (though this is, of course, illegal).
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In 1979, the U.S. Customs Service reported that 87% of all marijuana seizures in the U.S. were made in the South Florida area.
Due to the region’s 5,000 miles of coast and coastal waterways, and its close proximity to the Caribbean and Latin America, South Florida was a pot smuggler’s paradise.
In sharp contrast to the brazenly violent “Cocaine Cowboys” of the 1980s, Miami’s marijuana smugglers were cooler, calmer, and typically nonviolent.
Despite their chill reputation, Robert Platshorn and Robert Meinster—heads of the Black Tuna Gang and labelled “the biggest marijuana smugglers ever” by Attorney General Griffin Bell—were dealt the longest marijuana-related prison sentences in American history at 64 and 54 years, respectively.
They were convicted for importing at least a million pounds of marijuana—ten times the amount the organization actually moved.
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