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

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

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

Author: Eric Schlosser
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-04-01
ISBN: 0618446702
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Mariner Books

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

Book Review: This book changed my life.
Summary: 5 Stars

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 door policy favoring non traditional immigrants that has flooded our country with millions of immigrants a year I became outraged. Everything the critics in 1965 said would happen as a result of the chnge in our immigration laws has come true in spades! In 1986 the criticisms of the 1986 amnesty of illegal immigrants also came true. Everything Kennedy and his pro amnesty open border traitors has said has been a lie.

Without the massive amount of immigration that has taken place in the last 40 years our population would be stable, with the current tidal wave of immigration we will have a population of close to one billion in my grandchildrens lifetime! Unlimited immigration for an unlimited time is unsustainable. Yet all debate on immigration or population growth is shut down with cries of racism. Read the speeches Kennedy gave in 1965 and 1986 about immigration and amnesty and you will be angry too. For more information on how the tidal wave of immigration is affecting our country go to [...] and read this book.

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

America's black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqu? 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

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