Eric Schlosser.(interview)(Interview)

In his first book, "Fast Food Nation," American author Eric Schlosser crafted an ebullient indictment of the U.S. fast-food industry, arguing that the aggressive marketing of fatty foods has made Americans corpulent and prone to health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. His latest book, "Reefer Madness," takes on another highly profitable, multibillion-dollar enterprise:

The American black market. Schlosser focuses on three segments of the illegal underground in particular: marijuana production and distribution, the widespread use of migrant farmworkers and the formerly outlawed pornography industry. Schlosser recently hashed out his thesis and its ramifications with NEWSWEEK's Karen Fragala. Excerpts:

FRAGALA: Can an illegal economy ever be beneficial to a country?

SCHLOSSER: When you have a Western developed nation moving away from the rule of law into the black market, it's a very unhealthy thing. Ideally, you have workers being paid well, aboveboard, paying taxes, and you don't have entire industries feeding into organized crime. Gambling is a very good example of an industry that was totally controlled by organized crime, and now has gone mainstream. I'm not saying that gambling is good, but at the same time, if people are going to do that, it's better that it be done within the law and taxed, rather than have organized crime control it. Gambling used to be a huge source of corruption of police officers in the United States. So in a developed country like ours, it's [about] getting the market and the laws to reflect what people want to do.

Will there come a time when the United States, in line with most members of the EU, will be ready to decriminalize marijuana?

Yeah, I'm optimistic. But I don't think it will happen with this administration, or even any time soon. Canada [is considering] decriminalizing marijuana, but they're under enormous pressure from the Bush administration not to [do so]. The administration essentially said that it would start slowing down exports from Canada on the pretext of looking for marijuana, and are very adamant against Canada doing it.

It's been 20 years since Reagan began his famous "War on Drugs." Has it worked?