cannabisnews.com: The Last Word: Eric Schlosser The Last Word: Eric Schlosser Posted by CN Staff on June 01, 2003 at 11:09:00 PT Interview by Karen Fragala Source: Newsweek International June 9 issue — In his first book, “Fast Food Nation,” American author Eric Schlosser crafted an ebullient indictment of the U.S. fast-food industry, arguing that the aggressive marketing of fatty foods has made Americans corpulent and prone to health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. His latest book, “Reefer Madness,” takes on another highly profitable, multibillion-dollar enterprise: The American black market. Schlosser focuses on three segments of the illegal underground in particular: marijuana production and distribution, the widespread use of migrant farmworkers and the formerly outlawed pornography industry. Schlosser recently hashed out his thesis and its ramifications with NEWSWEEK’s Karen Fragala. Excerpts: FRAGALA: Can an illegal economy ever be beneficial to a country? SCHLOSSER: Can an illegal economy ever be beneficial to a country? When you have a Western developed nation moving away from the rule of law into the black market, it’s a very unhealthy thing. Ideally, you have workers being paid well, aboveboard, paying taxes, and you don’t have entire industries feeding into organized crime. Gambling is a very good example of an industry that was totally controlled by organized crime, and now has gone mainstream. I’m not saying that gambling is good, but at the same time, if people are going to do that, it’s better that it be done within the law and taxed, rather than have organized crime control it. Gambling used to be a huge source of corruption of police officers in the United States. So in a developed country like ours, it’s [about] getting the market and the laws to reflect what people want to do. Will there come a time when the United States, in line with most members of the EU, will be ready to decriminalize marijuana? Yeah, I’m optimistic. But I don’t think it will happen with this administration, or even any time soon. Canada [is considering] decriminalizing marijuana, but they’re under enormous pressure from the Bush administration not to [do so]. The administration essentially said that it would start slowing down exports from Canada on the pretext of looking for marijuana, and are very adamant against Canada doing it. It’s been 20 years since Reagan began his famous “War on Drugs.” Has it worked? I think it’s been a monumental failure. One of the key indicators is how easily drugs are available to anyone who wants to get them. When the real war on marijuana began in 1982, 88.5 percent of high-school seniors said it was easy to obtain marijuana. In the year 2000, it was identical. If marijuana were to be decriminalized, would it lead to widespread abuse? I don’t think so. Eleven states have already decriminalized marijuana. [And] marijuana use didn’t go up after those states decriminalized [it]. In those parts of Europe that have decriminalized [marijuana], they smoke less pot than American kids. In the Netherlands, it’s been decriminalized since the mid-1970s, and kids there smoke less pot [and] also use hard drugs at a lower rate than American kids. I am not saying it’s good to smoke pot, but the issue is: do draconian drug laws prevent people from smoking pot? The truth is, they don’t. Let’s talk about immigrant labor for a minute. If California’s agricultural industry were to clamp down on the labor abuse of migrant workers and demand minimum wages and other benefits, do you think the whole industry would collapse? No, I really don’t. So why the hesitation in dealing with this? Because the industry would prefer to have cheaper labor. It would cost the average American household $30 to $50 a year to double the wages of farmworkers. This is not calling for social revolution. It’s just a wage raise for the poorest people who work in America. [But] it takes well-organized, well-funded groups to put pressure on legislatures to make change. And when you are poor and illiterate and non-English-speaking, you don’t have access to power. You write that pornography’s greatest beneficiaries include Fortune 100 companies. How does this work? I’m in a hotel right now, and when you order your porn film on pay-per-view, the hotel operator is getting a cut. Hilton and Marriott and Sheraton are making sizable sums from this, as are AOL Time Warner and the other cable and satellite systems. Pornography and marijuana are billion- dollar industries in America, but are publicly scorned. Can you explain the incongruity here? I love my country, but we have very conflicting traditions at the heart of our culture. That’s America. Look at how we condemn porn, but we make more porn, watch more porn, have porn “Academy Awards.” And we have the toughest marijuana laws, but we grow more pot, smoke more pot, sing more songs about pot. This is a country that is deeply conflicted. It’s at odds with itself. Note: America Has Gone to Pot. Source: Newsweek InternationalAuthor: Karen FragalaPublished: June 9, 2003Copyright: 2003 Newsweek, Inc.Contact: editors newsweek.comWebsite: http://www.msnbc.com/news/NW-INT_Front.asp Related Articles:The U.S. Bucks a Trend on Marijuana Lawshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16476.shtml Sex, Drugs and Cheap Vegetableshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16295.shtmlReefer Madness: Notes From the Underground http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16240.shtmlSmoking Out America's 'Reefer Madness' http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16185.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #1 posted by global_warming on June 01, 2003 at 16:11:16 PT: Another Shallow Article This is just another shallow article that supports the deep sleep that most of the people enjoy. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment