Running Grass

Running Grass presents dozens of insider ‘snapshots’ of 1970’s smuggling; a fast-moving, educational, often funny series of eye-opening stories that hold back nothing about the heyday of massive pot smuggling that prompted Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs.

Though fictionalized, the real-life people portrayed in the stories largely were young, career-oriented, and intelligent. But what they had in common was the willingness to ‘take the chance,’ find uncharted adventures and exploit what was rampant in South Florida—running grass. Lots of it.

All succumbed to the gamble of winning big or losing everything, to leading a double life, to the rush that was equivalent to the olden days of piracy or rum running. It was the heyday of smuggling marijuana into South Florida in the 1970’s—not by the ounce but by the ton. Tons and tons of marijuana—millions and millions of dollars of pot—load upon load.

Running Grass is a fictional accumulation of stories based on the first-hand adventures of the author and his real-life cohorts, his upfront participation in the real deal.

The risks: capture and prison or huge legal fees. The prize: adrenalin pumping rushes; air, land and sea adventures and rubber-banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

The unlikely ensemble of thrill-and-paydirt outlaws depicted in Running Grass were among the many—thousands, perhaps—that moved the contraband through the undermanned defenses of the Coast Guard, the DEA and all levels of law agencies. Foreign freighters, tricked-out speedboats, shrimp boats rented by the trip, hidden compartments in pleasure boats as well as customized airplanes, specially rigged trucks and nondescript automobiles figured into their cunning schemes. And—too often for the entrepreneurs—instant improvising came into play when devised plans went afoul.

Bales of grass were dropped from overloaded small planes into the ocean where fast-working hands scooped them into the hold of a boat bound for South Florida inlets or isolated beaches where off-loaders awaited with pick-up trucks. Airplanes landed on remote airstrips or makeshift fields largely in the Everglades. Dangerous overland distribution extended to Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and points between and far beyond.

Running Grass also portrays marijuana farms and the bribe-stained trek out of the jungles and deserts of Colombia and Jamaica bound for the US or transshipment points in Panama or The Bahamas. Unscrupulous characters, and some were lawmen, both helped and seriously hindered the feisty smugglers who seldom carried weapons except large sums of palm-greasing greenbacks.

The wide-open 1970’s brand of pot smuggling is now part of history but the fine art of moving contraband is alive and well. The focus today is on Colorado and how this one state can supply such a vast market. The adventurous among the legal growers may well chance to clandestinely increase their yield beyond permit limits. Illegal growers will do what they have always done. There will be no shortage of entrepreneurs willing to satisfy consumer demand no matter the location. As all purveyors of illegal products or services throughout history, these will also extract profits based upon the risks taken.

The author’s Afterword outlines viable causes of the initial criminalization of marijuana in the early 1900’s and the shocking reasons for the increasing penalties of growing or possessing it until today’s voters began to turn back the clock more than 100 years. The current national debate about pot, however, dates back to the High Times of the 1970’s.