Eric Schlosser April 15, 2004

Eric Schlosser
Reefer Madness

America's black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids" nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation turns his exacting eye on the underbelly of the American marketplace and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays ? pot, porn, and illegal immigrants ? Eric Schlosser shows how the black market has burgeoned over the past several decades. He also draws compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new techonology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, and how big business learns ? and profits ? from the underground. Schlosser blends big-picture analysis, intrepid reporting, and fascinating character studies to paint "an enthralling yet appalling portrait of things too often ignored" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer). Reefer Madness is a powerful investigation that illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.

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