WRITER'S LATEST MUCKRAKING EXPOSES PUBLIC POLICY 'MADNESS'

The cacophony of breaking news often drowns out the big stories that
actually affect daily lives. War, terrorism, murder, mayhem and sexual
misdeeds monopolize the ink and airplay, to the detriment of huge issues
tougher to headline.

COMING UP

Eric Schlosser

WHAT: Discusses "Reefer Madness"

WHEN/WHERE: 2 p.m. tomorrow at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park; 7:30
p.m. Monday at Town Hall with tickets ($5) from The Elliott Bay Book Co.

INFORMATION: 206-366-3333 (Third Place); 206-624-6600 (Elliott Bay)

Issues such as the impact of the fast-food industry or get-tough marijuana
laws, or the increasing use of illegal aliens. Then along comes Eric
Schlosser, correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, who paints an
enthralling, yet appalling portrait of things too often ignored.

Schlosser first demonstrated his remarkable talents with his searing
indictment of Happy Meals and unhappy consequences, "Fast Food Nation," a
huge national best seller. Now, Schlosser returns with his first book after
the phenomenon, a collection of three magazine essays that examine the
underground economy.

Schlosser's "Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American
Black Market" (Houghton Mifflin, 221 pages, $23) again offers a muckraker's
combo meal of telling examples, fascinating characters and historical
perspective on pot, porn and illegal workers. Schlosser proves again to be
a master of trenchant fact nuggets that cause readers to pause:

"Today the federal government spends roughly $4 billion a year to fight the
war on marijuana. ... Although Richard Nixon often seemed to be the great
nemesis of pot smokers, more than three times as many people were arrested
for marijuana while Bill Clinton was president."

"American farmers now receive more money for fresh strawberries each year
than for any other fresh fruit grown in the United States, except apples.
And strawberry pickers are not only the poorest migrants but also the ones
most likely to be illegal immigrants."

"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. Americans spend an additional
$200 million or so on adult films piped into their hotel rooms."

Schlosser is most adept at pointing out conflicts between public policy and
private behavior. His examination of marijuana policing efforts, which
gives the book its title (borrowed from an infamous anti-drug film), is as
sharp as a stiletto.

The United States now boasts the toughest marijuana laws in the world, laws
with mandatory sentences so strict that people have been sent to prison for
longer periods than people convicted of murder. Schlosser points out that
20,000 federal inmates are now incarcerated primarily for marijuana
offenses, with a similar number in state and local prisons.

And these marijuana convictions have inundated the American prison system
- -- the number of people behind bars for non-violent drug crimes (330,000)
- -- is much greater than the country's entire prison population in 1970.
Mandatory drug sentences have put so much pressure on prisons that violent
offenders are sometimes released so that their cells may be used to house
drug offenders who face no possibility of parole.

Yet this crackdown on pot comes at a time when, as the writer relates,
about 20 million Americans smoke pot every year and more than 2 million
Americans smoke it every day.

This leads Schlosser to his damning summation: "Two decades after the
latest war on drugs was declared, some rough numbers may hint at its cost:
billions of dollars spent so far at the state, federal and local levels to
fight marijuana; 10 million Americans arrested for marijuana offenses;
about a quarter-million people convicted of marijuana felonies and sent to
prison for at least a year.

"And after all the time and energy and money that has been spent, and all
the personal harm that has been caused, not only has marijuana use among
young people increased, but the supply of pot hasn't really been affected."

So Schlosser argues for the same change recommended in 1972 by the National
Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse -- decriminalization of marijuana
under state and federal law. He also believes mandatory sentences should be
scrapped, in order that punishment fits the crime.

"Taking these steps would send a clear message to America's youth,"
Schlosser concludes. "The message would not be that smoking marijuana is a
wonderful, beautiful thing. It would be something more difficult to say:
The United States will no longer pursue a failed policy, waste money and
needlessly ruin lives in order to appear tough."

The 43-year-old Schlosser possesses the soul of a democratic crusader,
placing his greatest faith in the common sense of people, not bureaucrats
or elected officials, to demand changes once outrages are revealed. He
showed that in "Fast Food Nation" and again in "Reefer Madness."

Upton Sinclair, author of the classic indictment of the meat-packing
industry ("The Jungle"), has a worthy successor a century later.