Pubdate: Thu, 07 Aug 2003
Source: Metropolitan Spirit, The (GA)
Contact:  2003 The Metropolitan Spirit , Inc.
Website: http://www.metrospirit.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2486
Author: Brian Neill

REEFER MADNESS

Fresh from his in-depth and, at times, unsettling exploration of the fast 
food industry, freelance investigative reporter Eric Schlosser now takes 
readers on a probative journey into America's black market economy.

 From surreptitious marijuana farmers in the Corn Belt to downtrodden 
migrant farmers in California strawberry fields, and from the first origins 
of "girlie" magazines and "sex-pulp" novels to an estimated $10 billion 
"adult entertainment" industry in America today, Schlosser examines the 
country's swift underground currents in "Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and 
Cheap Labor in the American Black Market" (Houghton Mifflin Company 
hardback, 310 pages, $23).

In his introduction, Schlosser suggests that our mainstream economy - the 
very fluctuations in the stock market and value of our dollar - are 
inextricably linked with the black market.

Bolstering that statement, he asks the reader to consider that Americans 
now spend more on illegal drugs than cigarettes, and that three-quarters of 
all U.S. $100 bills currently in existence circulate abroad, the note being 
a favorite of underground traders for its high face value and relative 
stability.

"The supremacy of the dollar in the global underground has proven a boon to 
the American economy. The outflow of U.S. currency now serves, in essence, 
as a gigantic, interest-free loan," Schlosser writes. "In 2000 the U.S. 
Treasury earned an estimated $32.7 billion in interest from its banknotes 
circulating overseas. The 1996 redesign of the $100 bill was partly 
motivated by fears that Middle Eastern counterfeiters had created a 
convincingly real $100 bill, a 'supernote' that might threaten the role of 
U.S. currency in unofficial transactions."

Schlosser begins his journey in the Heartland of America's Midwest, where 
weather and soil conditions for corn are every bit as ideal as those for 
what one DEA agent in Schlosser's book calls America's largest cash crop: 
marijuana.

It is here that the entrepreneurial-minded have discovered that $70,000 for 
a bushel of well-tended marijuana beats, hands-down, the $2 they'd 
typically get for the same amount of corn.

It is also here that, according to Schlosser's research, America spends 
part of its annual $4 billion budget to fight marijuana, though maybe only 
nipping in the bud 10 to 20 percent of the total yearly crop.

Schlosser interviews DEA Agent Steve White, who knows the ins and outs of 
every Indiana corn field, as well as the workings of state-of-the-art, 
helicopter-mounted equipment used to detect the heat of high-powered, 
indoor grow lights used to raise marijuana.

The author also gets a tour of an equally state-of-the-art marijuana grow 
room, where hundreds of highly potent plants flourish from rock wool cubes 
attached to a maze of nutrient-fed pipes.

Schlosser also explores the contradictions inherent in America's 
drug-enforcement policies, following the case of a man serving a life 
sentence for merely introducing two parties in a large marijuana 
transaction, and refusing to accept a plea deal.

Mandatory minimum sentences and rampant prosecutorial leeway often inflict 
the most harm on the least serious offenders, Schlosser suggests.

He gives the example of a liberal activist and attorney in Bay City, Mich., 
who was caught with less than 2 grams of marijuana - essentially, a fat 
joint. Ordinarily, the offense would have brought a $100 fine, but because 
federal prosecutors took an interest in the case, he was sentenced to 14 
months in prison and had his law license revoked.

And then there are those political connections, like the case involving the 
son of former South Carolina Gov. Richard Riley, who faced 10 years to life 
in prison and a $4 million fine for conspiring to sell marijuana and 
cocaine. Instead, Schlosser notes, the son of the politically connected 
Riley (who also served as education secretary under Bill Clinton) received 
six months - of house arrest, that is.

 From the battle lines and casualties of the drug war, Schlosser takes us 
to the strawberry fields of California, where illegal immigrants toil 
during 10- and 12-hour days, sometimes in return for a fraction of minimum 
wage.

Schlosser's sources estimate there are more than 1 million migrant workers 
in this country. The typical migrant worker, Schlosser writes, is a 
29-year-old male making less than $7,500 a year, who has a life expectancy 
of 49.

Experts in Schlosser's book equate the practice of sharecropping - 
essentially, contracting out the managing of a farm-owner's own land to a 
migrant worker in return for a significant portion of crop proceeds - with 
serfdom.

Schlosser suggests that capitalism's never-ending search for cheaper labor 
will only result in unlivable wages for migrants and American citizens, alike.

Near the conclusion of his book, Schlosser postulates: "If the current 
abuse of illegal immigrants is allowed to continue, the United States soon 
won't have to import a foreign peasantry. We will have created our own."

Though titled "Reefer Madness," the majority of Schlosser's book is devoted 
to the porn industry.

A theme and historical reference throughout the 99 pages Schlosser spends 
on "An Empire of the Obscene," part three of the book, is the story of porn 
peddler Reuben Sturman.

Sturman created a multi-million-dollar porn industry, initially by selling 
girlie magazines and pulp novels to various stores he serviced with his 
comic book route in the late 1950s and early '60s.

Schlosser details at great length Sturman's run-ins with the law and the 
attempts of various agencies and prosecutors to have his wares declared 
obscene.

Sturman serves as a foil for the ever-evolving adult entertainment 
industry, though Schlosser's constant back-and-forth from past to present 
grows a little tiresome at times.

Still, Schlosser interestingly documents the hypocrisy that existed in the 
early days of porn, when anti-smut campaigns flourished, even as groups of 
men at Kiwanis clubs and American Legion halls hunkered together to ogle 
stag films.

 From tawdry peep show booths and magazines sold on the sly beneath the 
counter, Schlosser brings us to the present day, where all the fantasy 
flesh one could desire is just a few remote-control clicks away.

"In 2001, Americans spent about $465 million ordering adult movies on 
pay-per-view. Most of the money was earned by well-known companies that 
don't boast about their links with the sex trade, such as EchoStar, 
DirecTV, AT&T Broadband, and AOL Time Warner," Schlosser writes. "Americans 
spend an additional $200 million or so on adult films piped into their 
hotel rooms. Indeed, about half of all the films rented in hotel rooms are 
porn films. The leading hotel chains - such as Hilton, Holiday Inn, 
Sheraton, and Marriott International - get a cut of up to 15 percent."

Throughout "Reefer Madness" is an underlying theme that these transactions 
of the id that swell just below Mainstreet's view are illogically at odds 
with the moralizing and punishing, self-proclaimed status quo.

Scenes such as that of the late Senator Strom Thurmond feeding coins into a 
peep show machine as members of an all-male Commission on Pornography and 
Obscenity laugh and jeer, smack of such hypocrisy.

Politicians taking tough stances on importing cheap, migrant labor, while 
doing little, if anything, to the farm owners who hire such workers, is 
another example of giving lip service to morality and ethics, Schlosser 
suggests.

Granted, although Schlosser refers to the three parts of his book as 
"essays," "Reefer Madness" could have easily comprised three separate books.

Though Schlosser's reporting here is as solid as in his 2001 expose on the 
fast food industry, "Fast Food Nation," some of the interviews in "Reefer 
Madness" seem rushed, as if sources were swiftly ushered in, their 
information downloaded, then sent on their way.

And though the 67 pages Schlosser includes for notes and bibliography 
suggest solid, fact-based reporting, he doesn't shy away from using his 
editorial voice, advocating, for instance, the immediate decriminalization 
of marijuana, harsher penalties for employers of cheap, migrant labor and 
turning a blind eye to victimless crimes that occur behind closed doors.

Still, Schlosser seems to give us plenty to think about and after reading 
his book, it might be hard for one to glance at the day's Dow Jones closing 
without thinking of all those dirty little secrets that contributed to a 
particular company's rise or fall.

"Black markets will always be with us. But they will recede in importance 
when our public morality is consistent with our private one," Schlosser 
concludes. "The underground is a good measure of the progress and health of 
nations. When much is wrong, much needs to be hidden."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom