Eric Schlosser: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, And Cheap Labor In The American Black Market

Eric Schlosser's brand of advocacy journalism lays out facts, induces a little outrage, and makes common-sense suggestions, all while remaining so calmly rational that it's hard to imagine many people disagreeing. Yet disagreement lies at the center of Reefer Madness, which addresses the devastation wrought by a lack of consensus over what to do about vice in the U.S. The book derives from a handful of magazine articles that the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation wrote about the draconian American marijuana laws, the exploitation of migrant farm workers, and the legal battles surrounding the business of pornography. Reefer Madness has a clearinghouse feel at times, but Schlosser gradually finds a thread connecting the three sections, beyond the explication of an underground, untaxed economy. The book eventually comes down to a discussion of whether the ideals of free-market capitalism have any meaning in a society that restricts trade based on moral objections. The key component of Schlosser's argument is addressed in the shortest chapter of the book, a seemingly incongruous piece about the appalling treatment of California strawberry pickers. The law is such that being an illegal worker garners more punishment than hiring one, which amounts to a tacit acceptance of marginally cheaper produce in exchange for a new class of shadow Americans, with limited rights and a sub-sub-poverty standard of living. Schlosser contrasts the unofficially sanctioned inhumane conduct of agribusiness with a century of hypocritical political breast-beating regarding sex and drugs–arenas where Adam Smith disciples tend to pocket their "invisible hands." The marijuana section gets into the particulars of planting, harvesting, and selling without government detection, as well as the history of social attitudes toward pot smoking, which have become so relaxed over time that most Americans would be shocked to learn how harsh the penalties remain for mere possession. Ditto pornography, which is mainstream enough to be peddled in major chain hotels, but is technically illegal to own or sell under the country's ill-defined obscenity laws. The porn section is Reefer Madness' longest, and covers both the long line of American anti-smut crusaders (most of whom had their own struggles with personal perversities) and the curious case of Reuben Sturman, a Cleveland entrepreneur whose opportunistic sale of remaindered girlie magazines led to the foundation of a secret, multimillion-dollar porn empire, and one of the biggest tax-evasion cases in U.S. history. When caught, Sturman said he saw no reason to fund the government's attempts to bring his business down. Similarly, Schlosser contends that irrational efforts to legislate common human desires makes criminals out of ordinary citizens. More frightening, he implies that the government wants it this way, and that by having laws on the books that are only selectively enforced, the powers that be can control the people they want to control, while leaving their own transgressions uncondemned.