Not quite the lifestyle-changing tour de force that was Fast Food Nation, but still an interesting look at the American black market system as it relates to porn, pot, and illegal immigrant labor. Perhaps it could have been more effective as three separate works, as I did not find the summation at the end of the book to be terribly good at tying the three issues together, and I found there to be a quite disproportionate amount of "face time" for each issue, ie, the section on immigrant labor was rather short, while the section on pornography was so long and detailed that it became kind of a "slog" to get through.

this book took me 4 years to read. It is not nearly as good as fast food nation and I didn't really learn anything that new. I know the migrant worked situation is f'd up (don't buy strawberries!), the pot situation is f'd up and the porn situation is f'd up. What i am really waiting for is the prison book. I hope it is as good as FFN and has as big of an impact on society. Schlosser has been writing it for, like, 10 years though so I'm not sure when it will ever come out.

This book is divided into 3 parts, the common link being black market economics, politics and social implications of weed, farm labor and porn. The porn section was by far the most interesting, covering the fascinating life of porn kind Reuben Sturman, the Godfather of American porn long before the emergence of Playboy and today's current incarnations. Incredibly well-researched, and a fascinating study of a man who started from nothing, from when "porn" barely existed up to the modern era when organized crime eventually became involved with much adventure and intrigue along the way.

An overlooked piece of American history, filled with background details of how the underground business evolved and was legally attacked.

n  Prison cells are an expensive commodity, and they should be reserved for people who commit violent acts, who exploit the weak and the poor.n
Eric Schlosser: muckraking journalist extraordinaire. Years of field research went into this chronicle of America's schizophrenic, illogical, politicized and simply cruel treatment of social non-conformists, all while shrugging at the real crimes of exploitation, manipulation and deception that go hand in hand with the charade of the 'market' system.

Economic crimes should be punished much more severely than behavior that is considered merely unconventional or distasteful. When it comes to interfering with what consenting adults do behind closed doors, the government should obey some useful advice: mind your own business. 'Over himself, over his own body and mind,' wrote John Stuart Mill, 'the individual is sovereign.' Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance when our public morality is consistent with our private one. The underground is a good measure of the progress and the health of nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden.

Warning: The title of this book is a bit more risqué than its content.

Eric Schlosser explores pot, porn and illegal immigrants in his 2003 book, Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. The book, comprising three essays, is part historical, part narrative and part story.

I had high hopes for this book: It was a New York Times bestseller, and Schlosser had previously found success as the author of Fast Food Nation. But I wasn't impressed with the whole package.

Each essay was interesting and easy-to-read, an unlikely feat for arguments tracing the history of the criminalization of marijuana, the undocumented workers who work California's strawberry fields and the rise of the adult entertainment industry. Each essay could have been its own book, and in the end, I wasn't quite sure why the topics were grouped together.

Each industry is part of the underground economy in America, but the essays touched on just a small aspect of each. I would've preferred to have read three separate books in Schlosser's writing style. And furthermore, the essays varied too much in-depth. The essay on illegal immigration was about 35 pages, while the porn industry — focused mostly on the story of Reuben Sturman — occupied about 100 pages. Certainly, there's a lot to say about both subjects, so why the discrepancy?

Schlosser's arguments were compelling, thanks in part to his in-depth reporting and humanizing of each industry. His conversational tone lends simplicity to otherwise, often complicated and controversial topics. His most compelling essay, also the book's namesake, argues for the decriminalization of marijuana and offers historical, geographical and legal context on the issue. His focus on marijuana crops in the Midwest provides an interesting, too-close-to-home angle. I've recently marked a couple of books to read about drugs in the American Midwest, which seems to be a growing problem and one I've heard mentioned a couple of times since I moved to Missouri.

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
Eric Schlosser
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company
336 Pages
Copyright 2003

This is NOT the book for Conservatives. A book not necessarily advocating, but justifying pot, porn, and illegal immigration, Schlosser successfully supports his claims with striking evidence. Written by the same author of Fast Food Nation, Schlosser is a convincing, if not sometimes boring author. One things sure though, he gets the point across, and with nearly 50 pages in the back devoted to Notes, the reader knows for sure that Schlosser backs up every claim with evidence, varying from articles to interviews and case studies.

Schlosser begins Reefer Madness talking about prison sentences in Indiana. It is these mandatory minimum sentences that get Schlosser so angry, and this book is as much about decriminalizing marijuana (or at least suggesting something of the sort), as it is about how flawed our prison system is. The number of inmates has increased dramatically as a result of marijuana. And marijuana, as Schlosser uncovers, does not pose as dangerous of a threat as people put it out to be. There is no scientific evidence that it is a gateway drug, and if you are a paraplegic, arthritic, or someone with cancer, marijuana has benefits. What Schlosser also talks about is the difference between possession of marijuana in one state versus another.

Schlosser talks about illegal immigration in a much different light. Instead of bashing illegal immigrants from taking up our resources, he talks about how heavily exploited they are, and how much they are taking advantage of. The people to really blame for all of this are the "employers." Taking place in California, Schlosser also talks about how much more expensive strawberries would be if it were not for these migrant workers.

With regards to pornographic materials, Schlosser does not necessarily advocate for them. Rather he talks about a man's rise to fame as a result of pornography, Reuben Sturman, and how Sturman successfully, for years, broke the law and cheated the IRS. In addition to the case study on Sturman, Schlosser pays attention to the history of pornography. A common thread to this book is Ronald Reagan and other Conservative presidents playing a key role in why those that smoke marijuana and those that sell pornographic materials are in trouble with the law today.

This book is by no means for everyone. As a matter of fact, if you are a member of my advisory, I would recommend Chew on This (a dumbed down, much easier, kid friendly version of Fast Food Nation). The print of this book was rather small, and it was a dense book. It also was sometimes boring. Schlosser did this within reason, to prove his point, but after a while it got a little frustrating. Additionally, those that may be extremely Conservative with regards to issues like this will probably avoid ever reading this. Rest assured, I by no means advocate anything Schlosser talks about. I just see everything in a new light, and Schlosser does this all in a very convincing way.

Reefer Madness, the Brown Scare & Sex Crazed Fascists

In REEFER MADNESS, Eric Schlosser looks at the effects of U.S. policy on the underground or "black market" economy. Specifically, he examines three diverse "commodities" – "recreational" or illegal drugs (specifically, marijuana), cheap labor (provided by undocumented workers or "illegal aliens" from Mexico and South America), and "adult" materials (primarily pornography) – and the American "war" on each. Schlosser narrows the scope of his study by focusing on a few key players in each of these underground economies: Mark Young, a recreational pot smoker and middleman who was given a life sentence for brokering a marijuana deal; California strawberry farmers and the migrant workers who pick the finicky fruit; and Reuben Sturman, a "pioneer" of the porn industry (and a jackbooted thug).

REEFER MADNESS is an engaging study of what happens when a supposedly free and democratic government attempts to stomp out vices that it deems morally corrupt. The section on U.S. drug policy is especially enlightening – and quite relevant, given the current upsurge in drug-related violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Pornography receives the lion's share of attention, seemingly at the expense of immigration, which is a shame; I felt as though Schlosser barely scratched the surface of the latter, while I grew bored of Reuben Sturman's story by the end of the book. Schlosser concludes REEFER MADNESS by tying all three tales together, thus making a larger statement about civil liberties and the strengths and weaknesses of the "free market" in the U.S. Again, though, he probably could have devoted more pages to this synthesis had he not lingered on Sturman and pornography.

Overall, it's a fascinating and engaging read, and vividly demonstrates why all American citizens should be concerned with their government's attempts to regulate individual conduct – even if it's conduct with which you may personally disagree.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2009/03/31/...

What is in the book is quite good, but each of the extended essays is frustratingly incomplete. Schlosser leaves out that the War on Drugs produces roughly 1/3 of all homicides in USA, drug "crimes" 1/4 of the jail/prison population, drug related crimes another 1/4 of the jail/prison population, and who knows how many crimes committed by law enforcement. I use quotes on drug crimes because I believe many of the laws are blatantly unconstitutional and the WoD is not only a true war against the people of USA (over 100K dead in USA, far more outside the borders) and the Bill of Rights. In the strawberry fields portion, he barely mentions the cost of chemical use in worker health, and ignores neighbor health. In the pornography section, his subject is really just the career of one man, and not the US industry as a whole.

Fast Food Nation drew its strength from the depth with which he researched his topic. The detail and strength of the connections he drew made it such a great story. Unfortunately, Reefer Madness feels like he was trying to pull together three good stories with only thee connection of black/grey markets to stitch them into a single book.

Any one of the topics would have been an excellent book, but forcing them all between one set of covers makes the whole thing feel a bit rushed. Particularly the middle section about migrant laborers and fruit pickers.

That said, it's a good read, well researched and documented. And the final section about Reuben Sturman, the 'Walt Disney of Porn', is eminently readable.

A good book for a flight, maybe, if you want to look a bit more socially aware than your average Dan Brown/Michael Creighton reader.

This book was organized as three sections all loosely based on different aspects the black market and unreported income (marijuana trade, migrant workers, adult entertainment). Although the third section was by far the most developed an interesting, the whole book lacked the cohesion of Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. It felt like this book originally started as a Fast Food Nation II based on the sex trade in the US as the structure and logic in the third section of the book paralleled Fast Food Nation. My guess is that this book ran up against a deadline or something of the sort and was then piecemealed together with the other two sections. If the content of the book had matched the connecting logic in the afterward this this would have been five stars, but overall it fell short.

The first two essays, though never boring, are simply just interesting.

It is the third essay, An Empire Of The Obscene, that saves this collection from a dismal one-star rating. In that third essay there is a salient conflict - almost Ness-Capone-esque. Beyond the mere facts of the porn industry, of which there is no shortage provided, human ego is on display and fleshed out in such great detail it makes you remember why you're a Schlosser fan.

Read it for the third essay alone, totally worth it and totally engaging.

After having read Food Nation, I knew I wouldn't be getting it wrong when picking another book of the same author. The essays did it for me, I had no idea about the hypocrisy behind the government decisions, and how lame they become when dealing with these delicate issues 'for their own sake'; it occurred to me that it is so easy to blame and marginalise other countries when we don't even look at our own decisions; drugs, agriculture and pornography, three mere words that hide so much manipulation and convenience.