Pubdate: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 Source: Capital Times, The (WI) Copyright: 2004 The Capital Times Contact: http://www.captimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73 Author: Rob Thomas Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/author/eric+schlosser POT, PORN AND PICKERS Based on his books, one might assume that author Eric Schlosser was born with a muckraking gene. His 2001 best seller "Fast Food Nation" looked at how the domination of fast food in the American diet has transformed the country physically, politically, socially and financially. His follow-up, "Reefer Madness," looks at three aspects of the nation's underground economy -- pornography, marijuana, and migrant workers -- and what a major role those black markets play in America. Schlosser is actually a relative latecomer to journalism, having written plays and novels and worked for a film company before he began writing magazine articles. "When I decided to try journalism, I decided to try a kind of journalism that I liked reading, but I didn't find that a lot of people were writing," he said in a recent interview. "I started doing this kind of journalism when celebrity journalism was just reaching its peak, and I just had no interest in any of that. I tried to do something that was for me more interesting and more important." Schlosser's brand of journalism largely eschews any sort of linear narrative structure, instead constructing a web out of anecdotal accounts, historical context, scientific facts and political analysis. While he greatly favors facts over rhetoric to make his points, he has been painted by some critics as a left-wing, anti-corporate polemicist. "I'm not trying to write agitprop," he said. "What I'm trying to do is make people think about these things. I'm absolutely being attacked with being some kind of left-wing journalist. I was at the University of Texas and people were calling me anti-American, but that just shows us how far to the right our political debate has gone. 'Fast Food Nation' was chosen as the best business book of the year by Fortune magazine, and some of the best reviews of 'Reefer Madness' have come from Business Week and the Financial Times." While "Fast Food Nation" was a unified, original work of nonfiction, "Reefer Madness" originated out of magazine articles that Schlosser had written previously for the Atlantic Monthly and U.S. News & World Report. Those articles have been expanded, updated, and tied together by the concept of an American black market, running underneath a mainstream economy that simultaneously condemns it and profits from it. The first section, "Reefer Madness," deals with anti-marijuana laws in the United States, and the growing disconnect between a public that increasingly favors decriminalization and a government that sees nothing wrong with imposing long prison sentences for relatively minor pot-related offenses. Schlosser wrote the first version of the articles a decade ago and says things have only gotten worse. "It's like this headless animal that continues to move forward," he said. "The fervor behind the war on drugs in general is gone, but there are still true believers in power. Opinion polls consistently show that most people want medicinal marijuana made available and that most Americans favor decriminalization of pot. But tell that to the Justice Department." The middle section of "Reefer Madness" looks at the plight of migrant workers who pick strawberries in California, essentially working as indentured servants. The book was written before President Bush offered his proposal to grant illegal immigrants temporary "guest worker" status. Schlosser thinks this is a terrible idea that essentially extends the inequalities that immigrant agriculture workers suffer into other industries, which will end up hurting both immigrant and American workers alike. "The constant argument from industry is that Americans won't do these jobs," he said. "Well, Americans won't do these jobs at the wages that are offered. If the wages were raised, Americans would line up for these jobs. In Fast Food Nation,' I wrote about how there used to be a waiting list at American meatpacking plants. And now there's a high turnover rate because of the terrible pay and the terrible working conditions." Schlosser admits that he's not as passionate about the issue of pornography, the subject of the book's final section, as he is about marijuana laws and migrant workers' rights. But he says he was drawn to writing about the story of Reuben Sturman, a Cleveland entrepreneur who ended up running a hugely successful nationwide pornography business until federal authorities finally shut him down. In all three cases, Schlosser argues that America would be better off acknowledging this shadow economy and bringing it out into the light, rather than winking at it and allowing problems within it to fester. He notes that gambling, once considered as sinful as pot smoking or pornography, has become an essential part of many state budgets. "Once it became clear that gambling could be a very, very profitable activity, not only for corporations but the states, suddenly it wasn't illegal any more, and organized crime lost all its gambling revenue," he said. "Thirty years ago, gambling was like pornography. They would send you to prison for running a gambling operation, and now a lot of state budgets are dependent on gambling revenue." Schlosser's next book will look at another controversial growth industry in the American economy -- the prison system. Rob Thomas is an entertainment writer for The Capital Times and a regular book reviewer. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin