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."