Sociology of Deviance: Reefer Madness - Book Report/Review Example

Sociology of Deviance: Reefer Madness “Reefer Madness” is an engaging book by the famous investigative journalist and of Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser. As an investigative journalist by profession, Schlosser was able to show enough insight to locate and delineate the dark underbelly of the American marketplace. The book deals explicitly with the illegitimate underground enterprise of drugs and pornography trades practiced and executed by the immigrant labours and provide a glimpse how marijuana and pornography trades are instrumental generating and operating an economic trend in the American society.

Pornography and sexuality is treated as a social taboo. But the book, Reefer Madness can be treated as a Bible for the understanding and perceiving the sociology of deviance as it openly deals with the subtleties and intricacies of the marijuana and pornography trades without any cover. Sexuality is a topic that is always preferred to be discussed at a half-concealed note. But this is most harmful facet of the entire business because the emerging trade of pornography and drug peddling especially in the immigrant class is crucial and ignorance about this sector can lead to more serious offence.

The practice of pornographic trades or drugs is a commonplace factor in the lower section of the immigrant labours in America. The hypocrisy of the administration especially in this regard is an eye-opening catch unravelled at the proper time by Schlosser. Market based arguments put forth by Schlosser reveals the fact that law of the land captivates the pornographers but at the same time, it allows the immigrant labourers practicing these vices in the American society mostly to work in the Strawberry fields of the California.

This indulgence and servitude based on the agreement is injecting all sorts of malpractices in the society.Reefer Madness tries to explore and unravel the dark secrets pertaining in the American market. And all these facts are not only just expressed as perception or opinion of the author merely. The facts and figures presented by Schlosser are all well supported by evidences which are well researched. Therefore, the scintillating facts that are exposed in the book are bewildering but at the same time, these are the harsh and the naked truth of American economy and market which sustains on drug pedalling and pornography business.

The book is outstanding in many ways. Firstly, the book explores the dark secrets without any coverage to them and like an open wound in the American market; it is explored and expressed with tight-lipped evidence and thorough research which makes the facts revealed in the book as acceptable. At the same time the author of the book very skilfully and meticulously tells stories which are relative and those are told from both personal and universal realm. The delineation of the crimes operating throughout the book is definitely more explicit when compared with other above-ground subject matters of the same regime discussed in many other books.

The issue of the immigrant labours and the mal practices indulged among the labour class of the California’s strawberry field are investigated explicitly and expressed in a compelling way which makes the book unique and appealing.There are many specific cases and references of particular identities in the book that might seem quite deviant but are well synchronised with the demand of the investigation and coherence of the plot. The case of Mark Young of Indiana accused of life imprisonment for a minor dealing in marijuana and contrasting to this fact the case of Ohio porn magnet, Ruben Struman who was accused of tax evasion and at the same time has beaten obscenity charges number of times proves the fact that American society has been instrumental in becoming alienated and at odd with its own self.

Therefore at the initial state the characters from the book might seem deviant but the reason for such deviance is that mostly people are ignorant about the dark traits of marijuana dealing and pornographic market of America. With the gradual unravelling of the facts mentioned and investigated in the book the ordeal of Mark Young and Ruben Struman would seem commonplace and ordinary as well.The book is effective for the deviance class and any teacher would suggest it because the book is universal at the first place.

It might seem that the book is dealing with American market or society but it hints at the modus operandi of the entire market dealing with drug and pornographic business across the globe. At the same time it explicitly reveals the dark traits of the market and its dealings at personal levels as well by tracing the action and work of the participants of these dark traits in American market.BibliographySchlosser, E. Reefer madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004.