Late Night Live - Separate Stories Podcast

They were erroneously referred to as the ‘drug grannies’. In 1978, two American women in their late 50s/early 60s, life companions and not a grandchild between them, were charged with importing into Australia a two-tonne load of cannabis resin, or hashish, in a campervan.  Vera Hays and Florice Bessire had unwittingly, according to former journalist Sandi Logan, who has stayed with their story for 40 years, become drug mules for Vera's charismatic nephew.  The pair from Oregon had never been overseas before, and found themselves on a hair-raising journey through Europe, Afghanistan and India, to Australia.