Reddit Reddit reviews Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

We found 4 Reddit comments about Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
Mariner Books
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4 Reddit comments about Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market:

u/zamander · 7 pointsr/AskHistorians

An interesting read on the subject is the article An Empire of the Obscene in journalist Eric Schlosser's 2003 book Reefer Madness. It focuses on the career of Reuben Sturman, who was the biggest distributor of pornographic materials from the 60's onwards and a very big figure in the business until 1989 when he went to jail for tax evasion. It does tell more of the history of porn in the US. At some point before movie projectors became more common, there were entrepreneur's who provided a projector and material for "stag nights" or bachelor parties. Another thing to find some information on is the appearance of viewing booths in porn shops, although I'm not sure whether this was as late as the 70s. I don't have the book with me, but I recommend it highly, the other two articles on underground economies in the US, the marijuana trade and the illegal immigrant business are very interesting too.

Edit: Had to remove some ambiguities.

http://www.amazon.com/Reefer-Madness-Drugs-American-Market/dp/0618446702/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1375543498&sr=8-5&keywords=eric+schlosser

u/Bamont · 4 pointsr/atheism

There's apparently no evidence that they knew of the effects of smoking pot. I tried to trace down this quote:

"Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda,
smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see."

  • Thomas Jefferson

    With no success. I couldn't find the origin of the quote, though it was said to be in some of Jefferson's writings. I couldn't locate which ones were supposedly the correct ones.

    The best I came up with was a book by Eric Schlosser called Reefer Madness where he goes on to note that both Washington and Jefferson grew hemp but there's no evidence that they were aware of the effects of smoking it.

    Here's a link to the book, where you can preview the first Chapter on the far right side of the page and turn about 10-12 pages in (for some reason, this particular PC preview doesn't show page numbers) under the heading, "Criminalized, Decriminalized, Recriminalized:

    Reefer Madness - Eric Schlosser

    Also, here's a link to the wikipedia article, though the sources might seem a bit circular since the citation from the wikipedia page comes from the book - and I'm not sure of its reference:

    List of United States politicians who admit to cannabis use

    As far as I can tell this claim seems to be one made up by the pro-marijuana crowd (which, I'm part of, I just don't know why anyone these days would care if men who lived 200+ years ago smoked a plant - just like how I'm confused why Christians would want to say that our slave-owning nation that didn't allow women to vote was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.)
u/Wexie · 2 pointsr/Marijuana

Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market is probably the best book on understanding why MJ is illegal, while things like alcohol are legal.

"Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) returns with an exposé about the black market in the United States in Reefer Madness. He details three areas of the underground economy: marijuana, pornography, and illegal immigrant labor. He charts the growth of these industries as part of the country's economy and the hypocrisy of those who rail against these industries and yet spend their money within them. He refers to marijuana and pornography as "two commodities that Americans publicly abhor, privately adore and buy in astonishing amounts." Salon.com says, "Reefer Madness is more of a guided cultural tour, by turns infuriating, depressing and weirdly entertaining, than a polemic."

u/callmeDeaconBooze · 1 pointr/Unexpected

The book Reefer Madness Has an entire third of it about farming strawberries. Without people to do the work for next to nothing, Strawberries would cost $20.00 a pound.