Dec. 28 - Hundreds of Pounds of High-Grade Jamaican Wash Ashore along Key West, Fl.
This was one of the first recorded incidents where bales of Marijuana washed ashore in Florida. In the next 15 years, as Florida became one of the main smuggling corridors, many areas in the Keys were nicknamed "Bale Beach" after numerous finds by local citizens. (Some of the bales contained upto 25 pounds of dried Cannabis.)
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"Back in the 1970s, if you came home from fishing and said you had caught a square grouper, it meant that you had stumbled upon a bale of marijuana that had fallen off a boat from Jamaica. If you could manage to sell it off, it also meant that you did not have to go fishing for a while."
"Dec. 28 1975 - Hundreds of bales of Marijuana were confiscated by US Coast Guard members this morning after it was discovered to be covering more than a mile long stretch of beach.
It is believed that smugglers began tossing them overboard while trying to evade interception."