Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

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Overview

America’s black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids’ nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation turns his exacting eye on the underbelly of the American marketplace and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays—pot, porn, and illegal immigrants—Eric Schlosser shows how the black market has burgeoned over the past several decades. He also draws compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new techonology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, and how big business learns—and profits—from the underground.
Reefer Madness is a powerful investigation that illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.

Editorial Reviews

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The Barnes & Noble Review
In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser changed how we look at a hamburger with a scathing narrative that featured descriptions of hazardous butchering facilities and exploited minimum-wage workers. This latest book promises to do the same with the way we think about, if not use, marijuana, handpicked fruit, and pornography. In a series of essays, Schlosser examines the United States' underground economy, or black market, which in his estimate represents as much as 10 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. He illustrates how mandatory drug sentencing not only fails to diminish substance abuse but also results in nonviolent pot growers serving more time than killers. He depicts the hardscrabble existence of California's largely illegal immigrant strawberry pickers, some of whom sleep in caves just a few miles away from affluent homes. And he observes that some of the largest profits from the pornography go to the hotel-owning conglomerates that rake it in from in-room pay-per-view charges. As a whole, the collection comes off as a compendium of Schlosser's earlier magazine articles rushed into book form (indeed, much of the book was published originally in Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, and U.S. News & World Report), but it is an eye-opening read from an author who has the magical ability to make us think. Katherine Hottinger

The Los Angeles Times

At its most compelling, Reefer Madness is a great, muckraking ride. There's no hype in Schlosser's prose. Instead, he lets a cascade of facts make his points. — Emily Bazelon

More Reviews (6) Fewer Reviews

The New York Times

Schlosser's argument walks a difficult, winding path. Porn, he says, should be made legal across the board, and pot as well. Both actions would throw light upon the darkness of the black market and thus reduce America's gross national pretense of virtue. At the same time, though, he writes, ''All those who now consider themselves devotees of the market should take a good look at what is happening in California. Left to its own devices, the free market always seeks a work force that is hungry, desperate and cheap.'' Which is true enough. As Schlosser smartly notes: ''The sort of black market labor once narrowly confined to California agriculture is now widespread in meatpacking, construction and garment manufacturing. The growth of the underground has lowered wages, eliminated benefits and reduced job security in these industries.'' — Sam Difton

The Washington Post

Schlosser attacks this big theme with admirably thorough reporting and a refreshingly clear, no-nonsense writing style. — Philippe Bourgois

Time Magazine

Schlosser isn't attacking the pot industry here; he's going after the institutional hypocrisies that force it underground while leaving far more damaging practices, like the abuse of migrant workers, to fester openly. What ties Reefer Madness together is Schlosser's passionate belief that America is deeply neurotic, a nation divided against itself into a sunny, whitewashed mainstream and a lusty, angry, deeply denied subconscious. He just might be the shrink America needs. — Lev Grossman

Publishers Weekly

From the bestselling author of Fast Food Nation comes this captivating look at the underbelly of the American marketplace. In three sections, Schlosser, an Atlantic Monthly correspondent, examines the marijuana, migrant labor and pornography trades, offering compelling tales of crime and punishment as well as an illuminating glimpse at the inner workings of the underground economy. The book revolves around two figures: Mark Young of Indiana, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his relatively minor role in a marijuana deal; and Reuben Sturman, an enigmatic Ohio man who built and controlled a formidable pornography distribution empire before finally being convicted of tax evasion, after beating a string of obscenity charges. Through recounting Young's and Sturman's ordeals, and to a lesser extent, the lives of migrant strawberry pickers in California, Schlosser unravels an American society that has "become alienated and at odds with itself." Like Fast Food Nation, this is an eye-opening book, offering the same high level of reporting and research. But while Schlosser does put forth forceful and unique market-based arguments, he isn't the first to take aim at the nation's drug laws and the puritanical hypocrisy that seeks to jail pornographers while permitting indentured servitude in California's strawberry fields. Nevertheless, this is a solid-and timely-second effort from Schlosser. As world events force Americans to choose values worth fighting for, Schlosser reminds readers, "the price of freedom is often what freedom brings." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Atlantic Monthly correspondent Schlosser made a muckraking splash with Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (an LJ Best Book of 2001). He continues to extend the investigative reporting tradition in this episodic expos of America's black economy. In turn, he takes on the (now largely domestic) marijuana business, California big agriculture's reliance on Mexican migrant workers, and the adult video and bookstore industry. Schlosser follows one specific story within the wider framework of his subjects, and the first one, about a hapless pothead whose incompetent ambition and pride got him a life sentence, is as compelling a read as any thriller. From there the energy flags somewhat; brevity would have better served the tale of one innovative pornographer's rise and fall. Still, even when piling it on, Schlosser has produced a provocative book-this despite a certain na vet in the author's claims about the innocence of pot and porn, both of which he favors fully legalizing. Even dedicated civil libertarians with a bacchanalian bent might argue that recreational drugs and commercial sex provide greater opportunities for exploitation and violence than Schlosser admits into evidence. On balance, however, this book is essential for all public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The journalist who gave us the bestselling Fast Food Nation (2001) now investigates selected aspects of that nation’s underground economy. Practitioners of subterranean economics, CD pirates, gun smugglers, check kiters, and tax cheats comprise--but don’t account for--a huge part of our gross domestic product, states Schlosser, admitting that neither he nor anybody else is quite sure exactly how huge it is. Three disparate essays demonstrate how the off-the-books world thrives with pot, porn, and poor farmworkers. First, the author considers marijuana’s history in America and our government’s frequently ambivalent, always cynical attitude toward it. Marijuana farming, indoor and al fresco, is a major cash crop, especially in the heartland. Judging from these interviews, lots of stand-up folk are in the business . . . or in the clink. Schlosser recommends decriminalizing recreational use while keeping it illegal to supply dope, but he doesn’t fully explore how fostering legal demand for illegal supplies would work. Another significant cash crop, handpicked strawberries, keeps Mexican pickers and California growers in a symbiotic embrace, so long as the pickers stay migrant and undocumented. Farm operators insulate themselves with sharecroppers and middlemen. The underpaid, overworked pickers are defenseless, and the author suggests little to help beyond piercing the operators’ free-market cover. He then turns to the free market of pornography, which feeds nice profits to blue-chip corporations as well as dirty old men. In its present state, the industry was the brainchild of one Ruben Sturman, the Disney of Porn, whose lifelong battle with the Feds is engagingly reported. Lots of dirtypictures and nasty books would evaporate, pornographer Larry Flint suggests, if the reformers would just withdraw. Until then the illicit economy flourishes. Schlosser’s pieces remain stubbornly disparate, though individually they make fine reading. Three kinds of muck, raked by an adroit reporter. Author tour

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780618446704
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date: 4/1/2004
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 352
Sales rank: 306,449
Series: Edition 001 Series
Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.25 (h) x 0.75 (d)

Meet the Author

Eric Schlosser has been a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly since 1996. His work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, the Nation, and The New Yorker. He has received a National Magazine Award and a Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for reporting. In 1998 Schlosser wrote an investigative piece on the fast food industry for Rolling Stone. What began as a two-part article for the magazine turned into a groundbreaking book: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (2001). The book helped to change the way that Americans think about what they eat. Fast Food Nation was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years, as well as on bestseller lists in Canada, Great Britain, and Japan. It has been translated into more than twenty languages. Schlosser's second book, Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market (2003), explored the nation's growing underground economy. It also became a New York Times bestseller. In 2003, Schlosser's first play, Americans, was produced at the Arcola Theatre in London. Hoping to counter the enormous amount of fast food marketing aimed at children, Schlosser decided to write a book that would help young people understand where their food comes from, how it's made, how it affects society, and how it can harm their health. Co-written with Charles Wilson, Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food became a New York Times bestseller in the spring of 2006. Later that year, Fox Searchlight Pictures released a major motion picture based on Fast Food Nation, directed by Richard Linklater and co-written with Schlosser. "It's a mirror and a portrait," the New York Times said of the film, "as necessary and nourishing as your next meal." Schlosser is currently at work on a book about America's prison system.

Read an Excerpt

THE UNDERGROUND Adam Smith believed in a God that was kind and wise and all-powerful. The great theorist of the free market believed in Providence. “The happiness of mankind,” Smith wrote, “seems to have been the original purpose intended by the Author of nature.” The workings of the Lord could be found not in the pages of a holy book, nor in miracles, but in the daily, mundane buying-and-selling of the marketplace. Each purchase might be driven by an individual desire, but behind them all lay “the invisible hand” of the Divine. This invisible hand set prices and wages. It determined supply and demand. It represented the sum of all human wishes. Without relying on any conscious intervention by man, the free market improved agriculture and industry, created surplus wealth, and made sure that the things being produced were the things people wanted to buy. Human beings lacked the wisdom, Smith felt, to improve society deliberately or to achieve Progress through some elaborate plan. But if every man pursued his own self-interest and obeyed only his “passions,” the invisible hand would guarantee that everybody else benefited, too.
Published in 1776, The Wealth of Nations later had a profound effect upon the nation born that year. The idea that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were unalienable rights, endowed by a Creator, fit perfectly with the economic theories of Adam Smith. “Life, liberty and estate” was the well-known phrase that Thomas Jefferson amended slightly for the Declaration of Independence. The United States was the first country to discard feudal and aristocratic traditions and replace them with a republican devotion to marketplace ideals. More than two centuries later, America’s leading companies—General Motors, General Electric, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Boeing, et al.—have annual revenues larger than those of many sovereign states. No currency is more powerful than the U.S. dollar, and the closing prices on Wall Street guide the financial markets of Tokyo, London, Paris, and Frankfurt. The unsurpassed wealth of the United States has enabled it to build a military without rival. And yet there is more to the U.S. economy, much more, than meets the eye. In addition to America’s famous corporations and brands, the invisible hand has also produced a largely invisible economy, secretive and well hidden, with its own labor demand, price structure, and set of commodities.
“Black,” “shadow,” “irregular,” “informal,” “illegal,” “subterranean,” “underground”—a variety of adjectives have been used to describe this other economy. Although defined in numerous ways, at its simplest the American underground is where economic activities remain off the books, where they are unrecorded, unreported, and in violation of the law. These activities range from the commonplace (an electrician demanding payment in cash and failing to declare the payment as income) to the criminal (a gang member selling methamphetamine). They include moonlighting, check kiting, and fencing stolen goods; street vending and tax evading; employing day laborers and child laborers; running sweatshops and chop shops; smuggling cigarettes, guns, and illegal immigrants; selling fake Rolexes, pirating CDs. Economists disagree about the actual size of the underground economy and how to measure it. Some studies look at the discrepancy between the amount of personal income declared on tax returns and the amount of money that is actually spent. Other studies examine changes in currency supply, the velocity of money, levels of electricity usage. Each of these methodologies has its merits. All have produced conclusions that are debatable. There is general agreement, however, on two points: America’s underground economy is vast—and most of its growth occurred in the past thirty years.
Any estimate of illegal economic activity is bound to lack precision, since it attempts to quantify things that people have carefully tried to hide. Nevertheless, the best estimates convey a sense of scale and proportion. In 1997 the Austrian economist Friedrich Schneider calculated the rise of America’s “shadow economy” by tracing changes in the demand for currency. According to Schneider, in 1970 the size of the underground was between 2.6 and 4.6 percent of America’s gross domestic product (GDP). By 1994 it had reached 9.4 percent of the GDP—about $650 billion. Using a different methodology in 1998, Charles Rossotti, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told Congress that during the previous year Americans had failed to pay about $200 billion of federal taxes that were owed, an amount larger than the government’s annual spending on Medicare. Assuming an average federal tax ratee of 14 percent, that means Americans somehow neglected to report almost $1.5 trillion in personal income. The IRS estimate did nottttt include undeclared earnings from criminal activity.
Two other periods in modern American history were marked by thriving underground economies. From 1920 to 1933, the prohibition of alcohol led to widespread trafficking and the rise of organized crime. At the height of Prohibition, Americans spent about $5 billion a year on alcohol (roughly $54 billion in today’s dollars). This black market constituted about 5 percent of the U.S. gross national product at the time. When Prohibition ended, some bootleggers became well-respected businessmen. During the Second World War, the imposition of rationing and price controls created even larger black markets. A system designed to distribute scarce commodities fairly had some unanticipated effects: a burgeoning trade in ration books and a hidden cash economy. Perhaps 5 percent of the nation’s gasoline and 20 percent of its meat were soon bought and sold illegally. According to one estimate, by the end of the war Americans were failing to report as much as 15 percent of their personal income. The underground subsided amid the prosperity of the Eisenhower era. Wages increased, tax evasion decreased, and no illegal commodity generated the sort of profits once supplied by bootleg alcohol. And then at some point in the mid- to late 1960s the underground economy began to grow. Conservative economists point to high income tax rates and excessive government regulation as the fundamental causes. Liberals contend that declining wages, unemployment, union busting, and the business deregulation of the Reagan years were much more responsible for shifting economic activity underground. The explanations offered by the left and the right are not mutually exclusive. A stagnant economy prompted Americans of every background to work off the books. The hippie counterculture of the 1960s and the anti-tax movement of the late 1970s shared common ground in their dislike of government, encouraging defiance of the IRS. A new drug culture provided new opportunities for organized crime. The expansion of America’s underground economy over the last thirty years stemmed not only from economic hardship and a desire for illegal profits, but also from a growing sense of alienation, anger at authority, and disrespect for the law.
During roughly the same period similar phenomena occurred throughout the western industrialized world. The underground economy of the European Union may now be larger than that of the United States. Years of high unemployment, high tax rates, illegal immigration, and widespread disillusion with government have created enormous undergrounds. According to Friedrich Schneider’s estimates, these shadow economies range in size from an estimated 12.5 percent of GDP in Great Britain to an estimated 27 percent of GDP in Italy. Countries that were once part of the Soviet Union have even larger black markets. In Estonia the underground is now responsible for an estimated 39 percent of GDP; in Russia, for an estimated 45 percent; in Ukraine, for an estimated 51 percent. The underground is sometimes the most vibrant sector of these transition economies, the place where free enterprise has finally bloomed. But in many ways the growth of black markets in the developed world represents a step backward. An expanding underground economy is often associated with increased corruption and a greater disparity in wealth. For years government officials and members of the Communist Party secretly profited from the Soviet Union’s “second economy,” offering services and commodities unavailable through the mainstream. The largest undergrounds are now found in the developing world, where governments are corrupt and laws are routinely ignored. In Bolivia the underground economy is responsible for an estimated 65 percent of GDP. In Nigeria it accounts for perhaps 76 percent.
The U.S. dollar now serves as the unofficial currency of this new global underground. During the late 1960s and early 1970s American economists began to notice that the amount of currency in circulation had grown much larger than the amount ordinary citizens were likely to use in their everyday transactions. The discovery led to the first inklings that an underground economy was emerging in the United States. While business publications heralded the advent of a cashless, credit-based economy, the use of banknotes quietly soared. The $100 bill soon became the underground favorite, not just in the United States, but overseas as well, thanks to its high face value and the relative stability of the dollar. During the late 1970s the outflow of currency from the United States averaged about $2 billion a year. By the 1990s, about $20 billion in U.S. currency was being shipped to foreign countries every year. Today approximately three-quarters of all $100 bills circulate outside the United States.
The supremacy of the dollar in the global underground has proven a boon to the American economy. The outflow of U.S. currency now serves, in essence, as a gigantic interest-free loan. Every time the U.S. Treasury issues new banknotes, it purchases an equal value of interest-bearing securities. Those securities are liquidated only when the currency is taken out of circulation and put into a bank. In 2000 the U.S. Treasury earned an estimated $32.7 billion in interest from its banknotes circulating overseas. The 1996 redesign of the $100 bill was partly motivated by fears that Middle Eastern counterfeiters had created a convincingly real $100 bill, a “supernote” that might threaten the role of U.S. currency in unofficial transactions. The latest threat to the $100 bill comes not from organized crime figures, but from the central bank of the European Union. The new 500- euro note is perfect for black market activity. It has roughly five times the value of a $100 bill, allowing drug dealers and smugglers to lighten their suitcases. Portugal has banned the 500-euro note for those reasons, and its acceptance in other foreign undergrounds is not yet certain.
The three essays in this book shed light on different aspects of the American underground—and on the ways it has changed society, for better or worse. “Reefer Madness” looks at the legal and economic consequences of marijuana use in the United States. Pot has become a hugely popular black market commodity, more widely used throughout the world than any other illegal drug. The enforcement of state and federal laws regarding marijuana guides its production, sets the punishments for its users, and suggests the arbitrary nature of many cultural taboos. Americans not only smoke more marijuana but also imprison more people for marijuana than any other western industrialized nation.
“In the Strawberry Fields” examines the plight of migrant workers in California agriculture, who are mainly illegal immigrants. The state’s recruitment of illegals from Mexico started a trend that has lately spread throughout the United States. Many employers now prefer to use black market labor. Although immigrant smuggling looms as a multi-billion-dollar business in its own right, the growing reliance on illegals has far-reaching implications beyond the underground, affecting wages, working conditions, and even the practice of democracy in the rest of society.
“An Empire of the Obscene” traces the history of the pornography industry through the career of an obscure businessman and his successors. It describes how a commodity once traded only on the black market recently entered the mainstream, turning behavior long thought deviant into popular entertainment. Profits from the sale of pornography that used to be earned by organized crime figures are now being made by some of America’s largest corporations. The current demand for marijuana and pornography is deeply revealing. Here are two commodities that Americans publicly abhor, privately adore, and buy in astonishing amounts.
Linking all three essays is a belief that the underground is inextricably linked to the mainstream. The lines separating them are fluid, not permanently fixed. One cannot be fully understood without regard to the other. The vastness and complexity of the underground challenge the mathematical certainties of conventional economic thinking. Hard numbers suddenly appear illusory. Prices on Wall Street rise or fall based on minuscule changes in the rate of inflation, the unemployment rate, the latest predictions about the GNP. Billions of dollars may change hands because an economic measurement shifts by one-tenth of a percent. But what do those statistics really mean, if 20 percent, 10 percent, or even 5 percent of a nation’s economy somehow cannot be accounted for? America’s great economic successes of the past two decades—in software, telecommunications, aerospace, computing—are only part of the story. Marlboro, Camel, and Philip Morris are familiar names, and the tobacco industry is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, D.C. But Americans now spend more money on illegal drugs than on cigarettes.
The proper role of the state and the proper limits on the free market are central themes of this book. The political system of the United States and the economic system proposed by Adam Smith are ostensibly dedicated to freedom. Since 1776 Americans have been willing to fight and to die for freedom. You will search long and hard to find an American who thinks freedom is a bad thing. The question that has been much more difficult to answer is: Freedom for whom? Should the government be protecting the freedom of workers or employers? Of consumers, or manufacturers? Of the majority who live one way, or the minority who choose to live differently? In the abstract, freedom is always easy to celebrate. But adherence to that lofty ideal seems impossible to achieve. Despite the best of libertarian intentions, giving unchecked freedom to one group usually means denying it to another.
What happens in the underground economy is worth examining because of how fortunes are made there, how lives are often ruined there, how the vicissitudes of the law can deem one man a gangster or a chief executive (or both). If you truly want to know a person, you need to look beyond the public face, the jobs on the résumé, the books on the shelves, the family pictures on the desk. You may learn more from what’s hidden in a drawer. There is always more to us than what we will admit. If the market does indeed embody the sum of all human wishes, then the secret ones are just as important as the ones that are openly displayed. Like the yin and yang, the mainstream and the underground are ultimately two sides of the same thing. To know a country you must see it whole.

	The Underground	1
1	Reefer Madness	11
2	In the Strawberry Fields	75
3	An Empire of the Obscene	109
	Out of the Underground	211
	Afterword: More Madness	223
	Notes	241
	Bibliography	303
	Acknowledgments	313
	Index	315

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Anonymous

Posted June 3, 2011

Recommend it if you like porn.

This book has three parts to it. The first about weed, the second about illegal immigration and how strawberries are grown and the third about porn. While reading the weed section one will be some what frustrated and angry because the way the author writes it is to bring up some of the absurdities the government has over their priorities of who is a dangerous criminal. So even though you may be angry while reading this part it is very well written for that purpose because it makes you angry. This section makes you angry because the author compares how people who got caught selling weed, never stolen, rapped, molested or killed anyone, have longer sentences then people who are a real danger to society such as rapist and murders, who usually get out of jail sooner. It is ridiculous that many jails are over crowing due to people who was in possesion or sold weed while the real criminals such as rapists, molesters, murders or even people who sell harder drugs like heroin or cocaine are being led out free on the streets for less than half the time some one caught with weed is. THe second part is really sad becuase if brings you up front with the living conditions of the illegal immigrants in the united states. It also teaches you a lot on how farmers grow strawberries and which ones to eat, which are the smaller ones. Then finally out of the three sections this section is probably the biggest and about 2/3rds of the book is about porn. I personally did not like reading about porn becuase I am not a big fan of it but if you are then totally go for this book. They talk about the early history of porn and how it got started including the very first commercial porn flick called deep thought. If you like this subject then you will enjoy reading all the interesting magazine names this person Surman sold all over the world. There really are some crazy names. so if you like porn then be my guest but if you dont then dont read it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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R-Dunne

Posted April 16, 2012

I think this book was very well written. It offers a lot to peop

I think this book was very well written. It offers a lot to people who are interested in illegal economics. it makes you really think about the way we govern certain things and how unfair consequences can be. I was mad after reading some parts of the book. Definitely a must-read.
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Anonymous

Posted March 28, 2012

Journalism At It's Best

This book made me angry- but it also made me laugh. I couldn't believe that a man who dabbled in the marijuana business could face life in prison. Seriously, guys?? The way that Schlosser meticulously unravels the undeniable truths about the underground industries in America is more than admirable, and reading this book inspired me to look into journalism as a career.
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SpencerDanielson

Posted March 28, 2012

Econ Book Report

Reefer Madness tells you all about how marijuana, pornography, and illegal immigration all relate to the black market. Schlosser doesn’t necessarily reprimand these three not so child friendly subjects but he does however explain the movements of money and morals from these three subjects. He also tells many remarkable stories from these three categories and interviews people from all different sides of the spectrum. Schlosser argues for the point of decriminalizing marijuana. He uses historical content and also talks about the consequences that would be the cause of not going with the decriminalization of marijuana.
Eric Schlosser has several interviews with both people against the black market who want to put justice to it and destroy it and the people who sell or smoke pot, invent porn, and illegal immigrants. He gives the reader an unbiased perspective on how the Black Market is wrong and is messing with the economy and how small illegal acts in the Black Market are being given hefty fines and life sentences. In his interview with Mark Young he talks on how Young was given a long prison sentence for a small pot deal and that it’s solved nothing because Young still smokes pot to this day. Schlosser argues that even if smoking pot is wrong, putting long prison sentences for smoking just a little bit of pot will only cram our prisons. Schlosser also discusses the effects of illegal immigration in the black market. He describes contracts made by Kirk Produce Incorporated and how hard of a life illegal immigrants often at times can have. However, Schlosser does not just favor the hard working immigrants. He attacks both sides where he criminalizes illegal immigrants and then also criminalizes big business and how big businesses most of the time overpower illegal immigrants and get them to play by their rules. Reefer Madness is not so much a condemnation on the War on Drugs as it is of our government’s over-zealous prosecution of such crimes. Schlosser explains that justice has to be proportional and, even if some may think pot users, dealers and growers deserve jail time; Schlosser argues that their prosecutions, sentences and asset forfeitures to be way out of line.
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luna-lover

Posted March 27, 2012

I felt like i got a better understanding about why young people,

I felt like i got a better understanding about why young people, like my self, live a certain way today. All these things have become a normal way life. The idea of the subjects may seem wrong but we don't see that we live our lives like this everyday and it doesn't have to be weed or porn or using cheap labor. it could be some over the counter drug, a woman or man being sexually profiled based on their looks or a person who will work just about any job he or she can find just to make ends meet.
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9268004

Posted September 1, 2011

Interesting read

This book gives you alot to think about
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Anonymous

Posted June 2, 2011

High recommended

I would really recommended this book to people who dont understand the top three subjects it talks about, Marijuana, the strawberry fields(immigrants) and the porn industry who wish to get more educated on these subjects . This book goes into detail about how marijuanahas evolved over the years and stories about people who were affected and still to this day are. The second part was most interesting to me because i had no idea how bad they were treating Mexican/ Immigrants who came to this country in search for a better life only to be treated like slaves.Last was how porn was illegal in the early years and its amazing how a man could change that over the years to fight in court to be able to give the U.S exposure of himself and those who follow and now to this day have porn available to people 18 years and older nation wide. Schlosser does a very good job to maintain bias without taking a side and make a poiont through facts, so the reader has the option of debating whether its right or wrong.
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ShelbyCottey

Posted May 6, 2011

Very informative of the underground economies in America!

Reefer Madness is divided into three chapters. The first is about marijuana, the second is about cheap labor with illegal immigrants and the third is on pornography. The author writes this book based on the United States "black market". He gives somewhat of a biography on these 3 topics, which I feel is helpful for those, like myself, who are not aware of their history.

The first chapter is focused on marijuana. Schlosser provides interviews with many people who have had encounters with marijuana. Living in California, I have found it amazing to hear the penalties for marijuana use in other states. In chapter one for example, a man was arrested for possesion of 1.6 grams of marijuana, enough for a large joint. Living in Michigan, he received 14 months in jail. The second section is focused on cheap labor, or illegal immigrants in Guadalupe, California. Schlosser focuses on harvesting strawberries:the difficulty of it and hard labor that is being underpaid. The third and final section was the longest of the three. It focused on an underground pornography king Reuben Sturman.

I very muched enjoyed reading this book. If you liked Fast Food Nation, than Reefer Madness is a must read.
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Anonymous

Posted April 5, 2011

highly recommended

i thought this book did a good job explaining all three topics and why they influence the black market the way they do. schlosser brings up good points in all 3 aspects of the book. providing info on the history of both marijuanna,cheap labor, and pornography. overall a great book.
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alexprieto

Posted November 9, 2010

heard it before

Schlosser, a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, is a talented and intrepid reporter, and one of his greatest strengths is his ability to tell the personal stories behind the faceless underground economy. But Reefer Madness raises more questions than it answers. Its title and packaging suggest in-depth analysis, but Reefer Madness is neither a close-up look at the political economy of marijuana nor a broad examination of the black market. Instead, it is a compilation of three discrete essays, all substantially based on previous research, loosely linked by a brief introduction and conclusion. His depictions of pot growers, migrant workers, and porn hustlers are vivid. But although drugs, sex, and cheap labor are all aspects of the underground economy, it's not clear whether the whole here adds up to more than the sum of the parts.
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Matt_Glenn

Posted November 6, 2010

A good, solid read... Worth checking out!

A great informative on not very well known, or not much talked about topics. It was interesting throughout the majority of the book, and was definitely worth my time. I learned many things that I had never even thought about before, and it opened my eyes to how much of our economy actually deals with the black market. If only it could address more topics, then it would receive a five star rating in my opinion. But overall, it was a great, informative novel and I enjoyed reading it.
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Anonymous

Posted September 16, 2010

Very Informative!

Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness is a book that greatly exceeded my expectations of the reading. It's a book that talks a lot about common misconceptions people apply to marijuana to make it seem like a very bad substance with no purposeful uses. Many people believe that there are serious health risks involved with marijuana usage, such as lung cancer. The book argues against these misconceptions with the facts; lab tests have showed so far that there are no serious long term health risks involved no matter what type of smoker you are. This book also analyzes the economic and cultural aspects of a society where marijuana is legal. An example of such a society is Amsterdam where it is legal to walk into a cannabis coffee shop and purchase pre-rolled joints. The part of the book that interested me the most was when it talks about how flawed the legal system was to the point where people were getting thrown in jail for simple possession, and how other people were sentenced to life-long sentences regardless of how miniscule their job was in the operation of growing marijuana. Other very interesting parts included common medical uses for marijuana today and the comparisons between marijuana and other substances. The truth of the matter is people die from things like alcohol and tobacco products but no one has ever died from smoking marijuana. You can kill yourself with alcohol on the spot, but you cant smoke yourself to death with marijuana. After reading this book I found myself asking the same question over and over: "why isn't marijuana already legal?". According to the book, it is estimated that the value of America's annual marijuana crop ranges from $4 billion to $25 billion; now imagine what that would do for the economy considering the current economic status. Now take into account all that money and add it to the potential amount of money that would be saved rather than spent on criminals going to jail for petty possession offences. Now add that to how much money would be saved rather than spent on prescription drugs because marijuana has so many uses for so many different ailments. The idea the book portrays is a nation where we are free to smoke weed in the comfort of our own homes without having to worry about getting in trouble for it because it shouldn't be illegal as long as you don't drive high, don't go to work high, and don't get high in public. If people can show they can be responsible with the use of marijuana, I don't see the problem with it.
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BookAddictFL

Posted December 28, 2009

more from this reviewer

Powerful

This is a powerful book. Broken into 3 parts, it deals with the history of our approach to marijuana use; our use of illegal immigrants, specifically in the strawberry fields of California; and the development of porn in our country, how it grew, and how our government's attempt to suppress it only continued to spark the flame.

Eric Schlosser's meticulous research is written in an easy to understand form. He states the facts without any bias. For instance, you'll learn that a young man, with no prior record, arrested for marijuana possession can receive a longer prison sentence than a convicted murderer or rapist. And, while our country is in an uproar over illegal immigrants, our government allows these people to be used like slaves when convenient. When they are no longer needed, they are rounded up like cattle and sent back to Mexico.

In the end, whether you agree with his conclusions or not, a new light is shed on a world most of us pay no attention to. And perhaps tells us that we need to get more involved.
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Chilllll_N

Posted December 7, 2009

I Also Recommend:

Plain Madness

This book is what we are lacking on National television, FINALLY back to investigative reporting again. It provides you with insight into worlds that you may not have had any previous experience. It makes one consider the larger picture. Just read it and then have a conversation.
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Anonymous

Posted November 9, 2009

Reefer Madness

From the author of Fast Food Nation, comes his follow up Reefer Madness. Reefer Madness is without a doubt a must read for anyone who has an interest in the way our economy works. Reefer Madness takes us inside the Black Market of Marijuana, Illegal Immigration, and Pornography. Eric Schlosser is able to remain unbiased, while presenting the facts from both sides of the spectrum. Eric Schlosser's knack for putting out a well informed and structured story really helps make Reefer Madness a fast and highly enjoyable read. Some stories will have you questioning our own society and when finished with the book, you will come to realize how vital marijuana, illegal immigrants, and pornography are to our economy. This was a fantastic book and I recommend it to everyone who is in the mood for a great read.
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BEN360

Posted August 6, 2009

I ENJOYED THIS BOOK!!

I THOUGHT THIS BOOK WAS VERY INTERESTING TO ME.IT SHOWED ME THE WAY OUR BLACK MARKET IS.PLUS HOW THE PEOPLE VIEW THE PORN INDUSTRIE,AND HOW ALSO THE WAY IT CAN EFFECT US.THE MARIJUANNA LAWS TAUGHT ME SOME THINGS TOO!PLUS, HOW PEOPLE VIEW IT. I'M GOING TO BUY ANOTHER BOOK FROM THIS AUTHOR..
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Anonymous

Posted May 21, 2009

Surprisingly Interesting

Eric Schlosser did an amazing job in writing this book. I had to read it as part of a school assignment, but I ended up really enjoying it. The way he states his research is interesting and attention grabbing. The book opened my eyes on the issue of marijuana in America, I never realized how unjustly punished some people were for some marijuana crimes, it reinforced in me the idea of how hypocritical and unnecessary this government can be. I also learned about the rise of the porn industry in this country and it seemed ridiculous to me how the government spent so much time and money trying to stop adults from viewing pornography. What he wrote on the illegal workers that pick strawberries was also very surprising and insightful, he explained why it is such a difficult situation to solve because in many ways we need those workers.
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Anonymous

Posted July 27, 2008

Raised my eyebrows

Everyone should read this book, because of it, i feel alcohol and tobacco should be illeagle and pot decriminalized. All of europe has pretty much already done it so why not us follow?
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Anonymous

Posted May 4, 2008

reefer madnes the scandalous truth of the american black market

i realized that the black market is much more bigger than i had recently thought its a whole other world the we never knew about do to the fact that america dosent publicly say whats going on in the black market. schlosser covers ground about three different subjects weed, porn, and illegal immigrants. he goes into detail how to be a sucsessful tyconn in the underground market and basically how they riise and fall over time. scholosser writes a terrific explanation on where a fraction of the U.S. dollars are and have been going for many years.
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Anonymous

Posted December 6, 2006

Genius!

Genius...
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Interesting read

High recommended

Very informative of the underground economies in America!

highly recommended

heard it before

A good, solid read... Worth checking out!

Very Informative!

Powerful

Plain Madness

Reefer Madness

I ENJOYED THIS BOOK!!

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reefer madnes the scandalous truth of the american black market

Genius!