SUP'rs would never do this.....

[TallDude]

Leave it to those surfers...

http://abc7.com/news/cocaine-surfboard-smuggler-sentenced-to-prison/206380/

[OUTSIDEWAVE]

 i saw that exact thing in a surf movie

[pdxmike]

Bad news for anyone planning to ship a board in or out of the country.  Reminds me of the Naish-riddled-with-drilled-holes photo Easy Rider posted once. 


Custom agent after sawing the end off your board and finding nothing:  "You're A-OK. Have a nice day."

[TallDude]

I think the weight might have been a give away. They said it was 7 pounds of cocaine. 7 pounds is a lot to add to a little potato chip board. Maybe if it was a big SUS board weighing it at about 13 or 14 pounds they wouldn't have given it a second thought. I'm guessing a drug sniffing dog might have been involved.

[Zooport]

The guy probably doesn't even surf.

[Badger]

I think the weight might have been a give away. They said it was 7 pounds of cocaine. 7 pounds is a lot to add to a little potato chip board. Maybe if it was a big SUS board weighing it at about 13 or 14 pounds they wouldn't have given it a second thought. I'm guessing a drug sniffing dog might have been involved.

Cocaine sealed inside a surfboard wouldn't give off any scent for the dogs to smell. It was more likely found by X-Ray or maybe a suspicious repair spot on the board.

[SlatchJim]

I know I have a bit of Attila the Hun in me but I'd make a law that if you have to ingest everything that you're smuggling, and if you survive, we'll be happy set you free and call it even.  Not a lot of repeat offenders with that one on the books.

(And yes I know it's completely inhumane, illegal, and against every convention of civilized society...but sometimes a situation calls for a different approach.)

[surfcowboy]

That's an old old trick. One that most agents know about.

They'd feel the weight, then X-ray and then open it up. No need to worry, I don't think they'll be popping your board open from Omaha to Honolulu either.

[Weasels wake]

Actually this trick goes waaay back, all the way back to the youthful days of Mike Hynson, who as described in his book "Transcendental Memories of a Surf Rebel", wrote about smuggling hashish from Nepal in hollowed out surfboards.  He ended up in jail.
A great read by the way.

[Old School 213]

The guy probably doesn't even surf.

[PDLSFR]

There is a great book out which touches on this subject called "Thai Stick: Surfers, Scammers, and the Untold Story of the Marijuana Trade"

Located on the left bank of the Chao Phya River, Thailand's capital, Krungthep, known as Bangkok to Westerners and "the City of Angels" to Thais, has been home to smugglers and adventurers since the late eighteenth century. During the 1970s, it became a modern Casablanca to a new generation of treasure seekers, from surfers looking to finance their endless summers to wide-eyed hippie true believers and lethal marauders left over from the Vietnam War.

Moving a shipment of Thai sticks from northeast Thailand farms to American consumers meant navigating one of the most complex smuggling channels in the history of the drug trade. Many forget that until the mid-1970s, the vast majority of marijuana consumed in the United States was imported, and there was little to no domestic production.

Peter Maguire and Mike Ritter are the first historians to document this underground industry, the only record of its existence rooted in the fading memories of its elusive participants. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with smugglers and law enforcement agents, the authors recount the buy, delivery, voyage home, and product offload. They capture the eccentric personalities of the men and women who transformed the Thai marijuana trade from a GI cottage industry into a professionalized business moving the world's most lucrative commodities, unraveling a rare history from the smugglers' perspective.

[SUPcheat]

Never smoked cigarettes, don't drink and haven't used any type of mind altering substance outside of coffee for many decades, but in my ill advised youth, my hippie roommate dealt Thai stick in the 70's and I smoked some.  The stuff was blindingly powerful and only needed a hit or two.

I gather modern THC plants are also incredibly powerful compared to the stick and seeds of yester year, but at the time, Thai Stick was the strongest by a large margin.

[Easy Rider]

Just like Herb O'Brien and waterskis back in the day.




And pdx - - thanks for reminding me!   

[Badger]

Never smoked cigarettes, don't drink and haven't used any type of mind altering substance outside of coffee for many decades, but in my ill advised youth, my hippie roommate dealt Thai stick in the 70's and I smoked some.  The stuff was blindingly powerful and only needed a hit or two.

I gather modern THC plants are also incredibly powerful compared to the stick and seeds of yester year, but at the time, Thai Stick was the strongest by a large margin.

I remember Thai sticks. I only came in contact with them a few times in the mid seventies.

 They looked very exotic the way the buds were tied around a twig with hemp fiber. I don't recall them being any stronger than any other quality weed at the time, but they did look cool. I always thought it interesting how knowing the origin of a certain type of dope altered the effect to some extent.

[pdxmike]

I guess if this was the surf mag forum, someone would be writing that if it were a SUP, the dope would be on top of the board.