Reefer madness, sex, drugs, and cheap labor in the American black market

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

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

New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003.

The black market is America's 'hidden' economy. Pornography, drug use, and illegal labors are some of its prime 'commodities.' In his book entitled Reefer Madness Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor, muckraking journalist Eric Schlosser examines the impact of these clandestine markets on our daily lives, and the often futile and hypocritical efforts of legislators to regulate them. Of course the hypocrisy of the American public is partially to blame: while electing moralistic legislators, we are also avid consumers of these illegal industries. Black market profits total an estimated $1.5 trillion dollars in unreported income (Schlosser, 2003, p.5). Illegal labor keeps luxury costs low of everything from eating out (illegal laborers act as dishwashers and process our meat) to lawn services, even while people profess horror at the threat illegal immigrants pose to 'American jobs.'

Schlosser's section on the drug trade points out how America is supposedly waging an official 'war on drugs' while Washington is dominated by the powerful lobbies of alcohol and drug companies. One of the profiles in Schlosser's book, Mark Young, was given a life sentence for selling marijuana, a harsher sentence than he would have received for committing rape (Schlosser, 2003, p.8). Instead of treating drug addiction as a crime, Schlosser advocates treating it like an illness: decriminalizing simple possession of marijuana and repealing mandatory and 'three strikes you're out' sentencing guidelines would free more funds for drug treatment. Also, much of current legislation is patently unjust: individuals who are merely friends and family members of drug traffickers may have their assets seized. It is a lie that socially acceptable drugs like tobacco are less harmful than illegal drugs like cannabis: the black market and notions of drug illegality rest on vague, emotional notions of what drugs are 'worse' rather than objective, scientific facts.

Attitudes about sexuality are even more hypocritical. For example, the United States has some of the strictest rules in the world about what can be said and shown on television, yet the U.S. is the world's leading producer of pornographic media. The Reagan Administration was obsessed with prosecuting pornographers, and eventually convicted one of the industry's earliest producers, a man named Reuben Sturman, on charges of tax evasion. Ironically, the Administration claimed to worship Adam Smith and free enterprise -- except, of course, when it conflicted with its ideals of Christian morality.

Republican administrations have felt less uncomfortable with the prospect of illegal labor, as Schlosser's chronicles of the conditions of strawberry pickers illustrate. Children, men, and women work at the back-breaking labor for $6.75-$10 a day (Schlosser 2003, p. 92). Again, hypocrisy is evident -- the same right-wing advertisers who created the Willie Horton ad campaign that defeated Michael Dukakis have fought unionization of the migrant workers, and local authorities have refused to set up low-income housing (Schlosser 2003, p. 106). The market rewards only efficiency, Schlosser muses: "every other human value gets in the way," in the case of these workers (Schlosser 2003, p. 108).