Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market,Books,Free Shipping,0618446702,

	Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market by Eric Schlosser
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Product Details Binding Paperback Dewey Decimal Number 330 EAN 9780618446704 ISBN 0618446702 Manufacturer Mariner Books Number Of Items 1 Number Of Pages 352 Publication Date April 01, 2004 Publisher Mariner Books Availability Usually ships in 24 hours Product Description 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. As much as 10% of the American economy, and perhaps more, is comprised of illegal 'underground' enterprises, according to author and Atlantic Monthly correspondent Eric Schlosser. And while this segment is never discussed in the newspaper business pages, Schlosser tackles it with the same in-depth analysis and compulsive readability that made his Fast Food Nation a best seller. Reefer Madness spotlights marijuana, migrant labor, and pornography, three of the most thriving black market industries, and analyzes the often-tenuous place each holds in society as a whole. While each of the three could be the subject of its own book, Schlosser keeps his scope narrow by concentrating on the lives of the participants in the underground economy, especially Mark Young, an Indiana man given a life sentence for participating in a marijuana sale, and Ohio porn magnate Reuben Sturman. At just 21 pages, the treatment of migrant laborers in the California strawberry fields is dealt with more briefly but is just as compelling thanks to the first-person narrative of Schlosser’s investigation. In telling these stories, which are both personal and universal, Schlosser deftly explores the manner in which his subjects are treated (and punished) compared to others in more above-ground ventures. Along the way, he asks hard questions as to what that treatment says about America. Schlosser writing is passionately opinionated, but this is no mere opinion piece: his perspective is amply supported by extensive research and clearly reasoned interpretation of data. His direct and forceful writing style makes the impact greater still. After reading Reefer Madness, readers are likely to be shocked, appalled, and flat-out bewildered by what’s happening in the cracks and crevices of American business. --John Moe 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, Inc. The American black market accounts for 10 percent of the U.S. economy, according to this crusading journalist. 'When much is wrong,' he writes, 'much needs to be hidden.' Examining this dark world for injustices, Schlosser reports that punishment is more severe in some states for selling marijuana than for killing with a gun. Anti-porn laws are equally nonsensical, and illegal immigrants work in conditions so wretched as to throw a shadow on the land of the free. Three magazine articles are roped together here, with a brief essay to start and another to finish. While this book lacks the artful unity of the author's bestselling FAST FOOD NATION, Schlosser's precise outrage is as compelling off as on the page. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine Schlosser is the author of the best-selling Fast Food Nation (2001), which was a consciousness-raising examination of the fast-food industry. He now turns his reporting acumen to American underground economic activity, which, according to him, constitutes 9 to 10 percent of this country's economy--in other words, millions and millions of dollars that 'cannot be accounted for.' The black market in the U.S. 'is where economic activities remain off the books, where they are unrecorded, unreported, and in violation of the law.' The author focuses on three major black-market arenas: marijuana, the most widely used illegal drug in the U.S.; migrant workers in California, most of them illegal immigrants; and the pornography industry. Of course, woven into his account of this trio of black-market gold mines is also an examination of their effect on all of us, for the consequences are far reaching, from employing a child-care worker to downloading pornography off the Internet. His careful research and equally careful writing style contribute to a study that is certain to garner as much attention as his previous book. Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved 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. 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. Customers who bought this item also bought Fast Food Nation The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things Chew On This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy, Third Edition (Buzzed) Crime and the American Dream (Wadsworth Series in Criminological Theory) Customer Reviews for: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market Rating - This book changed my life. I read this book as I am interested in the topic of how the war on drugs has hurt our country more than helped it, and was looking for more information. However, it was the section on immigration that changed my life. Until I read this book I used to be pretty liberal Florida Democrat and a bit of an environmentalist. The only two people I have voted for president that won were jimmy Carter and Al Gore. After I read in this book the speech Sen Kennedy made in 1965 after changing our conservative immigration laws to an open ... Read More Rating - Where's the follow through? Schlosser's examination of the underground economies of marijuana, illegal immigrants, and porn does a lot to give you background information and then takes it nowhere. Every essay feels like a detailed exposition with no further material. Some of you intellectual types like to say this encourages you to think for yourself - I say it's lazy writing. Nothing new of real interest is revealed - pot is still popular and unfairly punished, California's agriculture thrives on exploited immigrant labor, and porn makes ... Read More Rating - Don't Casually Mention This Book By Name Suffice to say it's a wonderful read, eye opening and well thought out. Unfortunately, it has a title that will automatically dissuade the people who need to read it from doing so--along with the fact that it is a book. For God's sake, don't casually recommend it by name to anyone who's not very bright; they'll start rumors about you if you do. Highly recommended. Michael Rating - sort of a Reader's Digest version; not enough meat Upon purchasing 'Reefer Madness' I thought it would be a detailed account at America's obsession with the criminalization of marijuana users. Wrong. Perhaps a third of the book is on this topic, then the author proceeds to address such heady subjects as illegal immigration and pornography to fill in the rest of the pages. Beyond this the author has almost a hundred pages on notes and an index. So yes, I was disappointed. But it has to be said the author had done his homework, and he writes well. He does raise ... Read More Rating - Must Read For Free Market Enthusiasts Free markets are a myth. Well functioning markets depend on a complex alignment of public and private values, culture and laws. When these causes are not aligned, the model breaks down. One measure of market malaise, if not social malaise, is the size of black markets in the economy. In Reefer Madness, Eric Schlosser estimates that black markets in the U.S.A. are about 5% to 10% of the total economy. In less developed economies or transitional economies such as Russia, black markets represent 40% or more of the total ... Read More see more reviews See all books by author Eric Schlosser

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