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

By publishing these three case studies together, Schlosser makes an implicit indictment of an American legal system (and the culture that produced it) that legislates morality and punishes individuals for personal and private behavior, while ignoring human rights abuses by corporations. And by never making "preachy," overarching claims, Schlosser's well-documented and thoughtfully presented book allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions based solely on the facts that he puts forward.

In Reefer Madness, Eric Schlosser thoroughly examines the vast underground economy in the United States. The book is made up of three essays discussing marijuana in the black market, illegal immigration/cheap labor, and the porn industry.

Throughout his essay on marijuana, I like how Schlosser doesn’t just state statistics, but actually goes into detail on the topic. He explains overly-harsh penalties for marijuana dealers, growers, and smokers with real life facts and examples. This is shown when he tells the story of a man named Mark Young. Young lived in Indiana where the average sentence of a convicted rape crime is eight years. He became the middleman in a marijuana grow operation, introducing two growers to a place to grow and buyers. The men, Claude Atkinson and Ernest Montgomery, began their grow operation and gave Young $100 for every pound they sold. Eventually they got caught through a federal raid of one of their houses and found Young’s name in a briefcase. Young couldn’t talk as he had no information that the other men wouldn’t provide, and he received life in prison without parole for conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana in a quantity in excess of 1,000 plants. This part of the book was the most interesting to me because of the actual examples and the seriousness. He included facts such as 3 million Americans smoke marijuana on a daily basis, which really kept the 64 pages enjoyable. I liked Schlosser’s point of view on the issue, although he didn’t include many negatives of marijuana smoking or decriminalization.

The second essay in Reefer Madness was labeled “In the Strawberry Fields.” Although the shortest part of the book, I also found it to be the most boring. Illegal Immigration isn’t something that I am interested in and enthusiastic about but I gave the essay a chance. Schlosser takes a different view in this essay, going after the bosses who hire illegal immigrants and the system of illegal immigration itself, not the government as in his other essays. It basically talks about immigrants from Mexico and other bordering countries working for under our minimum wage with nothing new brought to the table, reiterating information that is widely already known and uninteresting.

The last essay in Reefer Madness is titled “An Empire of the Obscene.” This essay was definitely very interesting all the way through although it was the longest. It focused around a man by the name of Rueben Sturman, who was a huge figure in the porn industry up until the 90’s. It goes through his business, how he kept in the shadows. He hired Canadians to run his stores and smaller businesses, taking some of the profits from the peep shows and booths that he placed throughout the United States. He became a multi-millionaire through the porn industry, and evaded his taxes through offshore and foreign bank accounts under pseudonyms. Eventually it caught up to him and, after many court cases, he decided to ease out of the business, shredding documents and handing over companies to trusted friends and business partners. Schlosser throws in many interesting facts in this section such as the fact that the VHS became popular through porn because when it first came out no movie producers were using them.

Overall, I liked this book. It got a little boring through some parts as essays aren’t my favorite things to read, but this book was filled with a lot of information that got me to look further into information that I found interesting and it is definitely a must read if this is your type of book.

Reefer Madness dives in to the vast underground of Americas black market economy and brings the reader to a new understanding of how marijuana, pornography, and cheap labor strongly stimulate our economy. However, not every aspect of these lucrative businesses are all good. The vast majority of individuals who partake in these activities are just normal everyday citizens whether they're smoking a little "pot" on the side, secretly have a few adult DVDs in their closet, or even just are buying the cheaper strawberries at the supermarket. Overall, Reefer Madness kept me interested and stunned from beginning to end.

Eric Schlosser, the grade-a muckraker whose widely read Fast Food Nation catapulted him to fame, returns with Reefer Madness, dedicated to nothing less than examining the underbelly of America's black market. Through three distinct essays (dealing with marijuana, migrant workers, and pornography), he examines the history, underlying economics, policy effects, and future directions of products and services that America can neither seem to abstain from nor openly embrace.

Reefer Madness is a difficult book to review because, in practice, it's actually three completely distinct essays, tied together at the front and the back. The essays have markedly different style and tone, making a comprehensive review challenging. So, I will take the easier route: briefly reviewing each section. The book's overall score is the average, weighted to how long each essay is.

Reefer Madness: 74/100

Schlosser's first foray into the world of the underground economy deals with the vast disparity between the harshness of marijuana prohibition and its apparent popularity. Heavy on both the legal history and status quo, Schlosser's peerless research shines, giving an unvarnished account of how pot is grown, distributed, prosecuted, and proselytized. He interviews people on both the smoking and the busting ends of the spectrum, and makes a convincing case that pot is, by income, the most profitable cash crop in the country, above corn (a position advocated by some long-time federal investigators, among others).

His final conclusions are that (a) the chemical and psychological dangers of marijuana are likely far lower than those of alcohol and nicotine, (b) proper research into marijuana's properties is being systematically discouraged to keep it classifies as being higher-risk than cocaine or PCP, (c) draconian enforcement has led to America's staggering incarceration rate (which has unduly criminalized that inmate population and destroyed both lives and families), and (d) that a system of taxation and regulation would more effectively solve America's pot-related problems than the utter failure that is the War on Drugs. He makes a solid (if somewhat dry) case for these points, backed up by considerable evidence.

In The Strawberry Fields: 62/100

The weakest essay of the three, Schlosser's examination of the hardships of Mexican strawberry pickers in southern California suffers from an all-too-common affliction in nonfiction: irrelevance. The investigative punch of this section is largely weakened by immigration having, since the book's publication, become the new "hot" issue for American conservatives, which has led many of Schlosser's assertions to become widely known. To his credit, his treatment of the issue does a fair job of both humanizing migrants and of explaining the pressures on growers to use migrants, giving the reasons for poor labor conditions without demonizing or forgiving unnecessarily. The historical angle of the story is also a welcome addition, one rarely heard in today's rhetorical war. Still, the essay is too short and isn't an eye-opener. Schlosser could have done much better.

An Empire Of The Obscene: 86/100

Despite the book's title, it is the third section that is both the longest and most engaging of the three. Schlosser brilliantly weds a comprehensive examination of porn's move from underground to mainstream with the legacy of an almost unknown figure who, by all accounts, essentially controlled pornography distribution for over 30 years: Reuben Sturman. Schlosser's high-density, high-quality research alone would provide much the same interesting tone as in the first essay, but combined with the rise and fall of Reuben Sturman it becomes electric and intensely personal.

Despite its lengthy exposition and its mere 103-page length, the story of Reuben Sturman could easily be an HBO TV series on par with the best serial television ever produced. The story is so incredible it can be hard to believe, with Sturman and his rival Richard Rosfelder (of the IRS) spending decades locking horns with great victories and defeats. The story has a femme fatal, a prison break, money laundering of the highest caliber, the Mob, and explosions. From his first run-in with the law in 1963 to his eventual death in 1997, Sturman waged a personal war on the U.S. government, and it's fascinating stuff.

Perhaps Schlosser's strength in this section stems from his detachment to its outcome. Unlike the first two essays, which have a prescriptive tone, hard-core porn is essentially a done deal in America. While a "war on porn" has been pushed by the Bush administration, a conflict Schlosser anticipates but had not yet had a chance to see emerge, he (rightly) treats it as a futile battle: porn and prudes locked horns for decades, and porn won. As a result, Schlosser spends very little time telling us how things ought to be and can focus on telling us how it was.
Final Overview

Throughout, Schlosser's research is staggering. The endnotes and bibliography make up over 20% of the book, and Schlosser cites just about every fact he asserts, a sadly waning practice in non-fiction. This helps to make his more eye-popping assertions even more striking. It's clear throughout that he isn't making any of this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction, and Schlosser is determined to uncover the truths about areas of American living and business that many people would rather not examine at all (in fiction or otherwise). Though it lacks the powerful, life-changing punch of Fast Food Nation, this is nevertheless an excellent book that every adult American should read.

Reefer Madness is not so much a collective novel as much as it is a collection of three essays with a unifying theme. The unifying theme is meant to be the undermining and corruptive “black market” of marijuana, illegal immigrant workers and the porn industry. While each essay has its strengths, the theme as a whole does not really work.

The theme is weak in part because the “black market” aspects of each topic are corruptive in completely different ways. The first essay is the most effective and is about the ridiculous sentences charged to those people who produce, distribute and consume marijuana, sentences that are often vastly more severe than those passed out to violent criminals such as murderers, rapists and child molesters.

The author Eric Schlosser, who also wrote Fast Food Nation, clearly has no love for big business and an unchecked profit motive. Schlosser makes the argument there is no real reason for the criminalization of marijuana other than the fact there is no money in it. If pharmaceutical companies could package it and sell it as profitably as a pill, it would probably be in every corner pharmacy. While I agree with many of the assertions Schlosser makes for the hypocritical reasons marijuana remains illegal, I am not sure if I believe pot is quite as innocuous as Schlosser suggests.

The most effective part of the piece by far is Schlosser’s description of the people affected by the harsh penalties, especially one poor individual who was sentenced to life in prison for merely introducing a buyer and a seller. The section also describes the lengths to which some of these people go to avoid capture. The narrative, if nothing else, is an interesting read.

Schlosser’s description of the plight of California immigrant strawberry pickers is equally effective. Much like he did with the meatpacking workers in Fast Food Nation, Schlosser illustrates a group of people with no rights who nonetheless risk everything to do backbreaking work in the hot sun for 12 hours a day because it is still better than the options back home. If nothing else, it acts as a kind reminder of some perspective when complaining about some of life’s smaller inconveniences.

The last essay is by far the weakest, which was surprising. To have the porn industry detailed by a reporter of Schlosser’s pedigree seemed like an excellent opportunity to examine the hypocritical, two-faced Puritan roots of this country. While some of that is explored, the essay is far and away dominated by the story of one man who rose up through the industry, gained enormous wealth, and then lost it all and was sent to jail because of tax evasion. That’s right tax evasion. Not because he broke any ethical laws over the materials themselves, but because he skimmed millions off the top and was sent to jail for it. The guy is clearly meant to be seen as a persecuted hero but I did not entirely buy it.

I enjoyed Eric Schlosser's better-known work, "Fast Food Nation," and thought he did an excellent job on these topics as well. The book was about the black market and the "invisible" economy, and focused on three areas in particular: the pornography industry, marijuana, and undocumented workers. The downside to reading this book was that it felt dated; it was written in 2003, when marijuana was illegal throughout the entire US. Reading the marijuana part of the book reminds me how much things really can change in a short time, even if it feels like the change is glacial when it's happening. The decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs has been a long time coming, and while we are still behind the times where I live (in North Carolina), it is clear the attitude towards marijuana has shifted incredibly since the time this book was written, and I am optimistic that it will be nationally decriminalized and legalized soon. Schlosser focused on the egregiously punitive nature of marijuana sentencing, and how it hasn't always been that way (it used to be mandatory for Virginia farmers to grow hemp) and how it makes no sense that a weed should be criminalized more than murder.
Another part of the book that felt dated was his continual use of the term "illegals" and "illegal aliens" to refer to undocumented migrant workers. It surprised me to see someone using those terms, because nowadays it would be a sign of ascribing to a right-wing ideology, which Eric Schlosser definitely doesn't seem to be a part of. It seems like a small thing, but I think this change in language also reflects the changed attitude towards undocumented migrants and the place they hold in our society, especially with all the emphasis on the border and security. The descriptions of strawberry farm work were also something you don't hear about very much, even though we all have eaten strawberries picked in these same situations.
It was interesting to read about Reuben Sturman, the porn magnate who hid a lot of his money in offshore accounts and shell corporations before it was cool. His schemes seem like quaint amusing antics of a wily person compared to the streamlined, legal tax evasion of places such as Amazon, which paid no corporate taxes last year despite billions of profits.
Despite the dated nature of this book, I did find it informative and it was a window into the past. It showed how much things have changed, as well as how several things have remained the same. Eric Schlosser writes well, and I appreciated his approach to these subjects.

It's hard to argue with any part of Schlosser's book. He does not, for the most part, espouse any particular agenda (though it's obvious where his sympathies lie); he merely marshals facts - lots of facts, backed up with copious though unobtrusive notes - and observes the effects of current U.S. policy on three specific areas of the underground economy that makes up such a huge, though ill-documented, portion of our Gross Domestic Product: marijuana cultivation, undocumented immigrant workers in California, and pornography.

Hint: current policy isn't working very well, whether you believe the goal is to suppress the activity entirely or to minimize harm from it.

As is usual with Schlosser's work, Reefer Madness is meticulously researched and brimming with specific numbers, facts and citations (as much as can be, given that the participants in these fields are breaking the law, and hence are often reluctant to provide too many details to any above-ground agency). The end notes and bibliography are not to be missed, either - and they do in fact, along with the acknowledgements and index, make up a good third of the book.

This is an important book. It may not convert you to Schlosser's way of thinking, but it should shake the foundations of your worldview a bit.

This book is divided into three sections: one on marijuana, one on cheap labor/immigration/etc, and one on pornography. However, it would have been much better had Schlosser devoted a book to each topic. They are all fascinating, and it's interesting to see just what a huge part of our culture and government each of these taboos are.

The first section on marijuana seems the most thoroughly researched and the most fascinating. It is scary to consider how much time and effort the government puts into banning marijuana when there are so many other dangerous drugs (more dangerous even) out there that should have just as much attention, if not more. Some of the stories concerning the individuals were heart-breaking, such as the veteran who was kicked out of his home for growing medical marijuana -- and he had no other place to go.

The second section on cheap labor laws and Mexican immigrants was also fascinating, but it was far too short. Basically, it is a brief overview of what most of us already know and I think if Schlosser had written on separate book on this topic, he could have done so much more.

The third section on pornography was also interesting, particularly about the porn mogul (who is not Hugh Hefner or Larry Flynt) who rose to the top during the seventies, I think it was. Other than that, this topic too was comprised mainly of what most of us already know about the dark side of the pornography world.

It is not nearly as good as Fast Food Nation, but that is probably because Schlosser tries to cram too much into one book. While they are all tied together under the category of "The American Black Market", each one is so convoluted and complex that they deserve books of their own rather than short chapters within one book. Thus, Schlosser can prevent recycling data that we already know and instead devote his time to presenting us with more unknown ugly facts and more solutions.