Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser

I just finished Eric Schlosser's book Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. This was a truly fascinating book. Fascinating in its economic study of the American black market, but also fascinating for the stories that Schlosser uses to make his points.

It is amazing how incompetent, and at other times how complicit, our governement can be when it is trying to "solve problems". Our justice system is much more concerned with being punitive than actually trying to stop drug use, illegal immigration, and pornography. Most of the punitive efforts do nothing but increase the value of the things they are trying to stop, and bring along many worse crimes and problems along with them.

One fascinating point that Schlosser made was how much of Enron's shady accounting practices were based on strategies that the porn industry had developed much earlier.

I give a big thumbs up for the book.