Reefer Madness
Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
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Narrated by:
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Eric Schlosser
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By:
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Eric Schlosser
About this listen
The underground economy is vast; it comprises perhaps 10 percent - perhaps more - of America's overall economy, and it's on the rise. Eric Schlosser charts this growth, and finds its roots in the nexus of ingenuity, greed, idealism, and hypocrisy that is American culture. He reveals the fascinating workings of the shadow economy by focusing on marijuana, one of the nation's largest cash crops; pornography, whose greatest beneficiaries include Fortune 100 companies; and illegal migrant workers, whose lot often resembles that of medieval serfs.
All three industries show how the black market has burgeoned over the past three decades, as America's reckless faith in the free market has combined with a deep-seated Puritanism to create situations both preposterous and tragic. Through pot, porn, and migrants, Schlosser traces compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new technology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, how big business learns - and profits - from the underground.
With intrepid reportage, rich history, and incisive argument, Schlosser illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.
©2003 Eric Schlosser (P)2003 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Author Ron Chepesiuk chronicles the little known history of organized crime in Harlem.
African American organized crime has had as significant an impact on its constituent community as Italian, Jewish, and Irish organized crime has had on theirs. Gangsters are every bit as colorful, intriguing, and powerful as Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, and have a fascinating history in gambling, prostitution, and drug dealing. In the late 1800s, Harlem became a highly fashionable neighborhood.
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weak --reader is terrible!
- By Meyer Rosenbloom on 10-18-13
By: Ron Chepesiuk
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Boardwalk Empire
- The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City
- By: Nelson Johnson
- Narrated by: Joe Mantegna, Terence Winter (foreword)
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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From its inception, Atlantic City has always been a town dedicated to the fast buck, and this wide-reachinghistory offers a riveting account of its past 100 year, from the city's heyday as a Prohibition-era mecca of lawlessness to its rebirth as a legitimate casino resort in the modern era.
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The Unmasked History of Atlantic City
- By Steven Schuster on 08-07-10
By: Nelson Johnson
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Last Call
- The Rise and Fall of Prohibition
- By: Daniel Okrent
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A brilliant, authoritative, and fascinating history of America’s most puzzling era, the years 1920 to 1933, when the U.S. Constitution was amended to restrict one of America’s favorite pastimes: drinking alcoholic beverages. Okrent reveals how Prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces, including the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement and the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities.
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Very Thorough Historical Review
- By Pierre on 11-12-12
By: Daniel Okrent
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Lies the Government Told You
- Myth, Power, and Deception in American History
- By: Andrew P. Napolitano
- Narrated by: Andrew Napolitano
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano reveals how America's freedom, as guaranteed by the US Constitution, has been forfeited by a government more protective of its own power than its obligations to preserve our individual liberties.
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A Must Read America 🇺🇸
- By Jamie Schaible on 05-30-23
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New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
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A Narco History
- How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”
- By: Carmen Boullosa, Mike Wallace
- Narrated by: James Conlan
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The term Mexican Drug War misleads. It implies that the ongoing bloodbath, which has now killed well over 100,000 people, is an internal Mexican affair. But this diverts attention from the US role in creating and sustaining the carnage. It's not just that Americans buy drugs from and sell weapons to Mexico's murderous cartels. It's that ever since the US prohibited the use and sale of drugs in the early 1900s, it has pressured Mexico into acting as its border enforcer - with increasingly deadly consequences.
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Interesting book, tricky pronunciation
- By Enrique on 12-24-18
By: Carmen Boullosa, and others
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North Korea Confidential
- Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors
- By: Daniel Tudor, James Pearson
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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North Korea is one of the most troubled societies on earth. The country's 24 million people live under a violent dictatorship led by a single family, which relentlessly pursues the development of nuclear arms, which periodically incites risky military clashes with the larger, richer, liberal South, and which forces each and every person to play a role in the "theater state" even as it pays little more than lip service to the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority.
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Interesting portrait of North Korea marred by awful pronunciation
- By Amazon Customer on 08-03-21
By: Daniel Tudor, and others
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America: The Farewell Tour
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 14 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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America, says Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges, is convulsed by an array of pathologies that have arisen out of profound hopelessness, a bitter despair and a civil society that has ceased to function. The opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides are the physical manifestations of a society that is being ravaged by corporate pillage and a failed democracy. All these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet.
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Terrible narrator for the book
- By H U Rehman on 10-01-18
By: Chris Hedges
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American Overdose
- The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Chris McGreal
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it.
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An important read
- By Macmom4 on 02-18-19
By: Chris McGreal
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American Mafia
- A History of Its Rise to Power
- By: Thomas Reppetto
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Organized crime - the Italian American kind - has long been a source of popular entertainment and legend. Now Thomas Reppetto provides a balanced history of the Mafia's rise - from the 1880s to the post-World War II era - that is as exciting as it is authoritative. Structuring his narrative around a series of case histories featuring such infamous characters as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience and access to unseen documents to show us a locally grown Mafia.
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Mob at its best
- By Thomas on 02-14-23
By: Thomas Reppetto
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Queen of Thieves
- The True Story of "Marm" Mandelbaum and Her Gangs of New York
- By: J. North Conway
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Queen of Thieves is the gritty, fast-paced story of Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum, a poor Jewish woman who rose to the top of her profession in organized crime during the Gilded Age in New York City. During her more than twenty-five-year reign as the country’s top receiver of stolen goods, she accumulated great wealth and power inconceivable for women engaged in business, legitimate or otherwise.
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a bit repetitive
- By Andy on 09-19-14
By: J. North Conway
What listeners say about Reefer Madness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- TO3Y
- 08-24-04
Reefer Madness
<b>Reefer Madness</b> and <b>Fast Food Nation </b> are both MUST READS. Eric Schlosser has a gift for delivering non fiction in a totally engaging way.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Carl
- 08-21-12
Should Be Required Reading
Great book. Well researched and read. Tells us about about things and issues neither political party in the country wants you to know about. Tells is a lot about how free our country (and many others) really are plus how capitalism is ignored or exploited by our political system. It is a hard book to listen to because it tells us about things in a fair world, particularly one that claims to be Christian, these injustices should not stand.
Should be required reading in High School because it teaches us about how the world really is versus how society would like us to think it does. It also tells us a lot about our media (right and left) that totallly ignores what their audiences want to ignore.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mark
- 06-29-09
Pot, Sex and Strawberries
I really liked this book. Eric Slosser always brings an interesting point of view to a topic. I found myslelf questioning my notions on drugs and immigration.
My only negative is Mr. Slosser's voice. I found it a little drab and boring. The subject matter made up for that, but it was a little ditracting in the beginning.
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- Kevin Dorff
- 11-30-04
Content good, reader boring
I listened to and really enjoyed Fast Food Nation which prompted me to get this one. Eric writes an interesting book full of facts and details. The problem with Reefer Madness is that it has a different reader (Eric reads his own book this time) -- this is a problem because his voice puts you right to sleep -- it has a soft, almost monotone reading, no dynamics in his voice whatsoever. The content is very interesting, although to me it felt like it could have been a fair bit more focused - he seems to repeat himself a lot instead of taking thigs a bit more logically, I think - it may be intentional, I suppose.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ayla
- 07-31-17
Wake up America
All the facts you already think you know but don't confront. Listen, think, and take note. All this is real and needs to be fixed. Well read and an easy listen even if resulting in an uneasy feeling about California strawberries among other uneasy thoughts.
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- David
- 10-14-03
Excellent book
A beautifully researched book. Don't miss this one.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Sten
- 11-22-11
Fascinating and accurate
The reason I picked up this book was that a lot of my close friends are porn stars, and I was interested to see Schlosser's take on the industry, but the whole book was fascinating. The ultimate long, historical viewpoint that the book takes on the economy is what really struck me as profound. I was listening to it on my iPod as I rode the New York subways in October, and the combination of visiting the Occupy camps and thinking about the crappy economy and income inequality and "reading" this book (which was written before the collapse of '08, but warns of it) was a really... interesting experience, for lack of a better adjective. Like seeing several lines of thought and history converge.
The reefer part reminded in precise terms why we urgently need to legalize this drug, something I agree very strongly with even though I'm not a user. Being involved in sustainable food, I was glad to see such a thorough and unflinching look at the abuses of farm laborers. Both are discussed realistically and compassionately.
The porn section didn't disappoint either. I've met a lot of the people he interviews and I'd say he did them and the industry justice, which is to say he shows it for what it is. He doesn't get into any hysterical moralizing, respects the agency of the performers, and touches on the bad points in what I felt was an accurate matter, if a somewhat fleeting one. My only real complaint was that he seemed to be fooled to some extent by Bill Margold's act. The guy is a grade A asshole, which sadly doesn't come across here. He likes to paint himself as some sort of industry spokesperson when he's just another annoying small-time producer, and unfortunately Schlosser seems to believe him. But if you keep that in mind, the interview is still informative and interesting. So there's my insider's take, haha.
All in all a fascinating read backed with real facts and figures, and I like it when the author is able to narrate his or her own work well.
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- Lawrence
- 07-11-03
Lots of Facts
I found this book to be very factual in nature in that the author throws out fact after fact, seemingly in support of his implied position on the subject matter. At times he strings together facts but they sort of just hang there, leaving one saying and??However, the book is informative, entertaining and relevant. The section dealing with marijuana and its legalization seemed to be the author's most emphatic point and rightfully so.
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- Shannon
- 08-23-09
Interesting Perspective
This was an interesting read and provided some shocking information on the ridiculous "war on drugs". It could have offered more background on how the drug war came to its present state, but this was well worth listening to.
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- Eric
- 11-03-03
Insightful read/listen
Eric Schlosser's expose on the controversial black market commodities that continue to be argued over time and time again by supposed "experts" is a prime example of just part of what is wrong with America.
While the drug wars in other countries have taken a more proactive and rehabilitive approach, America stands idle, sometimes moving in reverse of a policy that actually work. Meanwhile cheap labor continues to be a profitable tool for the wealthy while blame gets displaced on disparaged immigrants trying to survive in a system that is focused on corporate greed and class and economic warfare. And pornography? Well, as the books theme comes full circle we learn an important value in our society. The more our government doesn't want us to have something, the more we want that something.
Schlosser takes a hard look at three very important parts of our economy, although small in comparison to most of the economy, large in our culture. I am really looking forward to Fast Food Nation!
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3 people found this helpful