SXSW 2011: Robert Platshorn (a.k.a Bobby Tuna) Square Grouper: The Godfathers of Ganja

‘I’m an old pitchman, and I’m a pretty good storyteller.’ So says Robert Platshorn, one of the subjects in Square Grouper: The Godfathers of Ganja, a new documentary by Cocaine Cowboys director by Billy Corben. The film, which had its world premiere at SXSW, depicts the proliferation of marijuana smuggling into Florida in the 1970s through three distinct stories. The Black Tuna Gang, headed by Platshorn, imported a hundred thousand pounds of marijuana into the country while the Zion Coptics lobbied (successfully, for a time) to use marijuana for religious purposes. And finally, Everglades City is studied as a breeding ground for smugglers deep in the Florida Keys.

‘I spent more time in federal prison for marijuana than anyone in history, ’ Platshorn said in a recent interview. ‘I spent almost thirty years in federal prison for a non-violent marijuana first offense.’ Corben highlights this fact in the film, and the legal incompetence that lead to it, but avoids skewing the work with his own views; the Black Tuna Gang, the Coptics and the people of Everglades City are not exempt from guilt or exonerated. ‘They don’t try to make a point but the audience gets it,’ Platshorn said. Here’s my interview: