This book makes you mad. Within lies a litany of the ironically immoral policies of American society regarding drugs, pornography, and cheap immigrant labor. I appreciate how Mr. Schlosser makes his arguments as well; he doesn't ram them down your throat but rather presents you with the cold, hard facts, allowing you to draw your own conclusions. On the downside, the book feels a bit too much like bundled articles and one-third of the pages are just notes (i.e. filler). Still, a good (but depressing) read.

In Reefer Madness, investigative journalist Eric Schlosser exposes three of America's biggest black markets--pot, porn and illegal immigrants. These shadow economies bring in billions of dollars that remain off the books. The author's research brings to light how each of these industries has experienced unbelievable growth even as the government has instituted stricter laws and harsher penalties to keep them out of society or out of our borders.

I thought that this book had some great information and great insight into the black markets that exist in America today. I did however, find the title misleading as it was about 3 distinct black markets, not just the marijuana trade. I would have liked this book more if the author spent more time in the connection between these three markets and how they apply to our world today rather than simply stating the facts. Much of this book read like a textbook. Like I said earlier, it had some great snipits of information and a whole history on each black market, but it was kind of "meh."

Eric Schlosser is one great writer. Having said that, the title of this book is a bit of a misnomer.

I came to this book thinking it was going to be about Marijuana and it's role in American society, which it is to a certain degree, particularly in terms of America's relationship to this drug in the past 40 years and the underground society it has engendered. However, the book is in three sections with the second section about strawberry farming in California and how a whole underground immigrant community farms this labor-intensive crop in affluent areas that forces the workers to live in shanty towns either provided by the landowners/ farmers or the public spaces that can be adapted for living. The third chapter is how a single person managed to dominate, almost single-handedly, the pornography business in the united states from the mid-sixties through the mid-nineties.

It's a fascinating account of how often the government creates these shadow economies by pursuing policies designed to "eradicate" something that some people oppose and some want and that moral crusades and tough penalties sometimes do more harm by stigmatizing and pushing these operations underground where people don't have to see them but they continue to corrode people's lives mostly outside of the public eye.

Fascinating triptych of articles from the author of Fast Food Nation. Schlosser has an enviable way of braiding facts, meticulous research, reportage and anecdotes into a speedy, punchy read.

The three long articles comprising the meat of the text deal with migrant labour, marijuana, and pornography. Schlosser's appetite for particulars regularly up-ends received wisdom. Of the largest mail-order sex shop in America, the headquarters is 'high-tech and impressive but surreal. Dainty, white-haired southern women - ladies you could easily imagine singing hymns in a Baptist church - were smiling and chatting and packing brightly coloured dildos into boxes.'

His facts are often surprising and always revealing. Three quarters of all $100 bills printed are used outside the USA: the 90s redesign of the bill was largely driven by concerns over a superior counterfeit that had emerged in Saudi Arabia. Drug lords and Islamic terrorists alike deal in dollars more than any other currency (more stable). Republicans produce and finance more hardcore porn films in Southern California than Democrats. Most astonishing is the annual U.S. revenue from adult entertainment. The estimate is between $8 and $10 billion, more than 'Broadway theatres, regional and non-profit theatres, and symphony orchestra performances - combined.' Rather odd for such a god-fearing nation, you might have thought.

A much snappier, funner, and more interesting book than his previous book  Fast Food Nation, Reefer Madness is author  Eric Schlosser's best work to date. And his second.

This book was compiled from various investigigative journalismistic articles he completed in the past, and it's better for it. The three sections of the book have cut out the fat, focus on interesting characters which held my attention, and are relevant, involving, and hiiiiiiiiigh.

But seriously: It's a good non-fic book. Read it.

Really interesting. I like the way that Eric Schlosser writes and picked this up ages ago, only to never read it. It's divided into three sections: marijuana, migrant farm workers and farming conditions, and pornography. I wish that the marijuana section was longer though. I still don't understand how in some states you will serve more time for 2 joints than you would for killing a person . . . The migrant farm workers plight is despicable. People look down on them, when they are trapped in a vicious cycle of sharecropping or extremely poor working conditions. I took a class on California in college, and this was one of the sections we focused on. The pornography section was interesting focusing mainly on one porn king.

I normally really like books written with views that strongly correlate to my views. However this one was just mediocre.

It is really a collection of three essays by Schlosser.

Marijuana, illegal migrant workers, and pornography are the topics.

Marijuana is the best, as it presents some sort of viewpoint about marijuana laws and punishments. Pornography is the worst, as it jumps around in time and subject from one porn guy to another, and basically just seemed like a jumbled biography of Reuben Sturman. Illegal migrant workers is in the middle.

I suppose it is interesting, but not a must read for anyone I know.

Eric Schlosser, writer (and co-screenwriter of the Richard Linklater film adaptation) of Fast Food Nation brings us more into This World: the America under the under-our-feet, that only the persistant journalist's eye (where are those, nowadays? oh, wait: here's one!) can dredge up to the light of day, so we can see it!

(Muckrakin's back, kids, but with such a sociologist's grasp of how the territory is — and gets — shaped, that only those with Preliminary's Completed First need apply!)
Economists, too, should shut the fuck up and read this book: it's a great trip for that summer holiday (if you're the snarky, "countercultural" type!) and you'll come back knowing better about none-too-many things we take for granted!

(The content? I'd be doing it, almost, a disservice: check out the bibliography/endnotes part, where Schlosser has a bit more story to tell, about how much groundwork he had to cover, to put the Story Itself together. Runoff, if you will: just too much, rather than too little, to put across!)

We don't know who makes our money, is the size-up, wise-up trip you'll get. It'll do ya good.

After reading Schlosser's earlier work, Fast Food Nation, I excitedly jumped into his latest work, Reefer Madness. I was disappointed.

This book felt like three other research projects he did - three projects that were on his B list. While he devoted an entire book to the the history and implication of the Fast Food industry in Fast Food Nation, he just cobbled together three subjects.

The first dealt with the views of marijuana by our government. Growing up in the Nancy Regan "Just Say No" world I always figured that government was against marijuana. In fact, the first official American government laws on marijuana asked Americans to GROW marijuana.

There were long biographies of particular marijuana farmers which I found a little long. People who were simply growing marijuana or trafficking marijuana spent more time in prisons than many murderers. Judges were given wide berths in the interpretation of trafficking, possession, and the amounts of marijuana. Sadly enough, some of the harshest critics of recreational drugs had their own children just have to attend community service and a nominal fine. Ironically, Charles Keating, Jr., who spent millions of taxpayer money on anti-drug campaigns, would get into jail for billion dollar fraud in the S&L scandals.

The second essay was about immigration workers . This has been talked about ad nauseum and the amount of page devoted hardly give it justice. I learned a lot about strawberries, but perhaps working in a Hispanic newspaper for the past four years makes it harder to give me great new insight

The third essay was about the growth of pornography mostly covering the life of a certain porn mogul (not Larry Flynt). The book lightly touched on some of the hypocrosies on our public view of porn and our private habits. There were a number of fascinating points in this essay but it just lacked focus.

That pretty much sums the book up. I congratulate Eric on a fine job of research and almost thundering together a book that would shake our thinking.

This was kind of a weird book to listen to. He seems to be arguing for legalization of pot, the virtues of porn, but the evils of using migrant labor. In a way, it feels like he is just really angry about a lot of things. But very informative. The porn section is really more of a biography of Reuben Sturman and an accusation that he was persecuted by the government. Interesting to know, but the whole book seemed like a manifesto.[return]

Investigating America's Vices
19 June 2013

tWritten the author of Fast Food Nation, this book contains three case studies that each dealing with an area of the black market: marijuana, immigrant workers in the strawberry fields on California, and the hard core porn industry. As one can expect from Schlosser, it is a thoroughly researched and tries to look at these industries in an objective manner, and does not necessarily try to conclude with some left wing conspiracy.

tBasically there are lots of books that cover the topic of marijuana in the United States and the war on drugs. Being an Australian where possession of small amounts (up to three ounces in some places) is pretty much a misdemeanor that results in a small fine, it is difficult to understand the nature of the war on drugs as it plays out in the United States. In a way the war itself is scary because it has been suggested that if you are caught with even one joint you can be classified as a dealer, locked up, and have all of your possessions confiscated, even before you have been convicted. In a way I believe that this is a really heavy handed approach, particularly since the laws date back to the 1930s, where the Dupont company pushed for the criminalisation of marijuana so that it could dominate the textile industry.

tAnother argument is also that since it is only recently that marijuana has become a popular Anglo-saxon drug (up until the sixties marijuana was predominantly a Mexican pleasure, and its narcotic purposes were only used in cure-all potions made by chemists, who in those days did not necessarily need a license to practice). Unfortunately, it is very difficult to access anything these days on the history of drugs and drug use since many of these documentaries are generally not made, or if they are, do not appear on the mainstream media (unless of course its message is 'Drugs are bad'). In a way, it feels as if marijuana did not exist prior to the sixties, and that modern drugs, such as meth-amphetamine, did not exist until the late 90s (which is not true because allegedly Hitler used it during World War II and also apparently fed it to his troops).

tIt appears however that this book is about the black market and how the black market influences all of our lives. In a way we are all exposed to the black market, whether we smoke pot, or rent dodgy videos from those dodgy video stores that have no windows. This is where the second case study comes into play: illegal immigrants. Schlosser looks at the strawberry growers, but this applies to a lot of industries across the United States (and while it happens in Australia, the fact that we do not have any land borders with poorer nations, we have a lot less illegal immigrants than do the United States). The reason illegal immigrants are so popular is because the laws do not apply to them, so they can be paid under the minimum wage, which means more profits for the business owner, and that they are not affected by the unfair dismissal laws (or any of the other laws that apply to legitimate employees).

tWhile the section on the porn industry applies to the black market as well, much of this has more to do with the freedom of speech amendment than it has to do with the black market (even though while the industry was fighting the obscenity laws the profits coming from the porn industry were effectively a part of the black market). Mind you, this section surprised me because I was expecting it to deal with Hugh Heffner or Larry Flynt, but they barely made a mention in this section. I guess the reason is that we are dealing not with what is termed as soft porn (if there is such a thing) but with hard core pornography. Mind you, porn has been around as long as there have been people willing to pay for it (even though before photography, we had to pay for live shows, and then we might as well go to a brothel), however with the advent of film, television, and now the internet, access to it has become a lot easier.