07/01/2026
200 TONS of Panama Red!
A story and published photo by Keith Terracina, i’m sure some of you have heard of me,and yes I know I post this photo from time to time on many of my different pages, websites, magazines, my book newspapers, even high times magazine 45 years ago and it’s also in a bunch of bars in Key West where you can also pick up my book “Key West the way it was” It’s actually 45 years old. This was when I was working for the Key West Citizen, newspaper covering the largest drug seizure in South Florida 200 tons of Panama red as we called it back then the wicked w**d, because it was about 10 tons of it got away you could read about that in my book, this actually started the Conch Republic and I know pretty much better than anybody because I was one of the staff photographer of the Key West citizen newspaper, and I’m the photographer who ended up being the first photographer on site. 830 in the morning, March 27, 1981 I actually knew what was going on before it went down. That’s another crazy story. what actually happened was the Coast Guard Marine patrol DEA were in on this major drug bust and I mean major. There was so much w**d confiscated that had to empty out the county jail to hire the prisoners to unload the frater funny right and as usual, my stories are true. I have the photo back up. It’s hilarious. I’ll just say this that freighter probably threw 10 tons of w**d overboard for the next week every boat in every marina from Key West to Key Largo were out fishing even kids cut school to go fishing. I even went fishing anyway that red sticky bud was amazing there’s even a couple great songs written about it.