cannabisnews.com: Keep Off The Grass





Keep Off The Grass
Posted by CN Staff on April 21, 2003 at 20:26:44 PT
By Lev Grossman
Source: Time Magazine 
It's amazing that Eric Schlosser is still capable of being shocked. As the author of Fast Food Nation, the best-selling indictment of the burger-and-fries industry, he has peered into some pretty nasty grease traps. But get him started on marijuana laws, and he's almost at a loss for words. "Some of these people are facing 20 years in prison for selling a glass water pipe with a pot leaf on it. I mean, that's just unbelievable. When you think about the fact that the typical convicted murderer in the U.S. does 10, it's...it's reefer madness." 
Reefer Madness (Houghton Mifflin; 310 pages) is the title of Schlosser's new book, and in it he widens his scope from a single industry to take on the entirety of what he calls America's "underground economy"--that vast, shadowy realm of financial activity that goes unrecorded because it's either illegal or unsavory or both. Like the fast-food business, the underground economy has ballooned over the past 30 years, to about $1 trillion, and Schlosser aims to find out why. He's hunting big conceptual game here, nothing less than America's troubled, hypocritical soul. "If the market does indeed embody the sum of all human wishes," he writes, "then the secret ones are just as important as the ones openly displayed."Schlosser concentrates his search on three areas: pot, migrant labor and pornography. (In case you're wondering whether combining porn and economics makes economics interesting or porn boring, it's the former.) He follows the money down some dark alleys: into peep shows and prisons, subterranean high-tech hydroponic pot farms and camouflaged, garbage-strewn encampments of illegal Mexican farmworkers. He introduces us to Reuben Sturman, a humble Cleveland comic-book salesman who became the founding father of America's $10 billion porn industry and who deserves a whole book of his own. We meet Mark Young, a good-natured loser who got a life sentence — without parole — for his peripheral role in one marijuana deal. Schlosser has a gift for spotting colossal numbers that hide in plain sight: America's domestic marijuana harvest, he tells us, is worth upwards of $20 billion a year, making it the country's largest cash crop.Schlosser isn't attacking the pot industry here; he's going after the institutional hypocrisies that force it underground while leaving far more damaging practices, like the abuse of migrant workers, to fester openly. What ties Reefer Madness together is Schlosser's passionate belief that America is deeply neurotic, a nation divided against itself into a sunny, whitewashed mainstream and a lusty, angry, deeply denied subconscious. He just might be the shrink America needs. His next book will take on the prison system, and it will complete what amounts to a three-volume history of the underbelly of late--20th century America. "In 1970 the prison population was just dropping," Schlosser says. "Last week they announced it was over 2 million. This is the land of the free, with the most prisoners in history! It's unbelievable!" See? He's still shocked.Note: The author of Fast Food Nation takes on America's shadow economy: pot, porn and migrant labor.From the April 28, 2003 Issue of TIME MagazineNewshawk: DruidSource: Time Magazine (Asia)Author:  Lev GrossmanPublished: Monday, April 28, 2003Copyright: 2003 Time Inc.Contact: letters time.comWebsite: http://www.time.com/time/Related Articles:Reefer Madness, Redux http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15921.shtmlMarijuana, Gateways and Circuseshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15462.shtmlHigh Road: Marijuana as a Gateway Drug http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15281.shtml The Roots of Reefer Madnesshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14653.shtml 
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on May 02, 2003 at 08:44:35 PT
Related Article from The Guardian Unlimited UK
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16153.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on May 01, 2003 at 20:29:04 PT
Related Article
With Pot and Porn Outstripping Corn, America's Black Economy is Flying High Illegal migrants provide the muscle for US black market Duncan Campbell in Los AngelesFriday May 2, 2003The Guardian Marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy, according to a study. As a cash crop, marijuana is believed to have outstripped maize, and hardcore porn revenue is equal to Hollywood's domestic box office takings. Despite laws that punish marijuana cultivation more strictly than murder in some states, Americans spend more on illegal drugs than on cigarettes. And despite official disapproval of pornography, the US leads the world in export of explicit sex videos, according to Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labour in the American Black Market, by Eric Schlosser. Complete Article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,947880,00.html
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on April 22, 2003 at 08:15:41 PT
ekim
I would love to have another guest but the chat can't take the load of many people at one time. I don't know if observer figured out why it can't take the load. If someone goes to observer's chat you could ask him about it if you want too.
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Comment #2 posted by ekim on April 22, 2003 at 07:58:38 PT
Great idea for book of the month clubs
Or anyone else that would like to read this book and talk about it with others. Maybe a chat could be structured around it with the author.
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Comment #1 posted by null on April 21, 2003 at 22:06:10 PT
this book is important
i have had the fortune of reading a pre-release version of this book. while there have been many books written which lay forth the evidence in favor of legalisation, none will likely prove as important as this one. why? one word: BACKING.Houghton Mifflin is putting a huge amount of advertising money behind this book. It makes sense since Schlosser's last book, Fast Food Nation, sat at the top of the charts for quite a long time. If the sales of this book are anywhere near a repeat performance of Fast Food Nation it can ONLY be good for the cause.Please buy this book. It will important for it to post good numbers on the charts. That alone can make a huge difference. And to top it off, it truly is a gripping read. I tore through it over two days. (I read the marijuana chapter in a couple hours.)No, I don't work for the publisher. I am working for the same cause we all desire, friends.Illegal herb is absurd.
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