From the finca to the maquila Book

Eric Schlosser, the grade-a muckraker whose widely read Fast Food Nation catapulted him to fame, returns with Reefer Madness, dedicated to nothing less than examining the underbelly of America's black market. Through three distinct essays (dealing with marijuana, migrant workers, and pornography), he examines the history, underlying economics, policy effects, and future directions of products and services that America can neither seem to abstain from nor openly embrace.

Reefer Madness is a difficult book to review because, in practice, it's actually three completely distinct essays, tied together at the front and the back. The essays have markedly different style and tone, making a comprehensive review challenging. So, I will take the easier route: briefly reviewing each section. The book's overall score is the average, weighted to how long each essay is.

Reefer Madness: 74/100

Schlosser's first foray into the world of the underground economy deals with the vast disparity between the harshness of marijuana prohibition and its apparent popularity. Heavy on both the legal history and status quo, Schlosser's peerless research shines, giving an unvarnished account of how pot is grown, distributed, prosecuted, and proselytized. He interviews people on both the smoking and the busting ends of the spectrum, and makes a convincing case that pot is, by income, the most profitable cash crop in the country, above corn (a position advocated by some long-time federal investigators, among others).

His final conclusions are that (a) the chemical and psychological dangers of marijuana are likely far lower than those of alcohol and nicotine, (b) proper research into marijuana's properties is being systematically discouraged to keep it classifies as being higher-risk than cocaine or PCP, (c) draconian enforcement has led to America's staggering incarceration rate (which has unduly criminalized that inmate population and destroyed both lives and families), and (d) that a system of taxation and regulation would more effectively solve America's pot-related problems than the utter failure that is the War on Drugs. He makes a solid (if somewhat dry) case for these points, backed up by considerable evidence.

In The Strawberry Fields: 62/100

The weakest essay of the three, Schlosser's examination of the hardships of Mexican strawberry pickers in southern California suffers from an all-too-common affliction in nonfiction: irrelevance. The investigative punch of this section is largely weakened by immigration having, since the book's publication, become the new "hot" issue for American conservatives, which has led many of Schlosser's assertions to become widely known. To his credit, his treatment of the issue does a fair job of both humanizing migrants and of explaining the pressures on growers to use migrants, giving the reasons for poor labor conditions without demonizing or forgiving unnecessarily. The historical angle of the story is also a welcome addition, one rarely heard in today's rhetorical war. Still, the essay is too short and isn't an eye-opener. Schlosser could have done much better.

An Empire Of The Obscene: 86/100

Despite the book's title, it is the third section that is both the longest and most engaging of the three. Schlosser brilliantly weds a comprehensive examination of porn's move from underground to mainstream with the legacy of an almost unknown figure who, by all accounts, essentially controlled pornography distribution for over 30 years: Reuben Sturman. Schlosser's high-density, high-quality research alone would provide much the same interesting tone as in the first essay, but combined with the rise and fall of Reuben Sturman it becomes electric and intensely personal.

Despite its lengthy exposition and its mere 103-page length, the story of Reuben Sturman could easily be an HBO TV series on par with the best serial television ever produced. The story is so incredible it can be hard to believe, with Sturman and his rival Richard Rosfelder (of the IRS) spending decades locking horns with great victories and defeats. The story has a femme fatal, a prison break, money laundering of the highest caliber, the Mob, and explosions. From his first run-in with the law in 1963 to his eventual death in 1997, Sturman waged a personal war on the U.S. government, and it's fascinating stuff.

Perhaps Schlosser's strength in this section stems from his detachment to its outcome. Unlike the first two essays, which have a prescriptive tone, hard-core porn is essentially a done deal in America. While a "war on porn" has been pushed by the Bush administration, a conflict Schlosser anticipates but had not yet had a chance to see emerge, he (rightly) treats it as a futile battle: porn and prudes locked horns for decades, and porn won. As a result, Schlosser spends very little time telling us how things ought to be and can focus on telling us how it was.
Final Overview

Throughout, Schlosser's research is staggering. The endnotes and bibliography make up over 20% of the book, and Schlosser cites just about every fact he asserts, a sadly waning practice in non-fiction. This helps to make his more eye-popping assertions even more striking. It's clear throughout that he isn't making any of this stuff up. Truth is stranger than fiction, and Schlosser is determined to uncover the truths about areas of American living and business that many people would rather not examine at all (in fiction or otherwise). Though it lacks the powerful, life-changing punch of Fast Food Nation, this is nevertheless an excellent book that every adult American should read.