Exploring America's split psyche

Eric Schlosser Reefer Madness (Allen Lane, 27th March, £10.99, 0713996587).

Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser, whose exposé of the fast food industry Fast Food Nation (Penguin, 0141006870) was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic, returns to explore three pillars of America's underground economy: marijuana, pornography and the use of illegal immigrant workers.

"It was by no means clear than any readers would be interested in Fast Food Nation. Houghton Mifflin, which at the time was the last big independent publishing house, was absolutely terrific in giving me an advance which enabled me to do the research, and in not asking me to tone the book down. But the other big houses weren't interested in the book, it wasn't an obvious success.

"In trying to explain why the book was so successful, and why it continues to find readers, I think it's very easy to be misled about the United States by some of the things we export—fast food, TV and films, and especially current government policies. Our country is actually much more interesting and diverse than those things suggest. The success of Fast Food Nation in America is a symptom of another America—Bush's election was a very, very narrow victory.

"The three pieces in Reefer Madness, about marijuana, pornography and migrant workers in Californian agriculture, all began as big investigative pieces for Atlantic Monthly. I've written a number of such pieces, but these three seemed linked thematically, so I went back and reworked them.

"The linkage is the working of the underground economy. What's disturbing over the past 25 years in the US and throughout the European Union is the rise of black markets. Different economists give different explanations: on the right, people argue it is because of high taxes and too much government regulation; on the left, people argue it is high unemployment and the failing power of the labour unions.

"To me they are a disturbing sign of alienation—people's needs being out of touch with government regulations. I love my country, but if you see it as a person, it's almost like a person without a fully integrated personality. There are these wild swings between smoking more pot than anyone, writing songs about it, and having this hugely developed pot culture—and at the same time putting people in prison for life, and having this anti-marijuana fixation.

"Pornography is a very interesting case of something that began as a black market in the 1940s and '50s, when it was something that could get you sent to prison, which then gradually became mainstream.

"What's interesting in the essay about migrant workers, which I really care deeply about, is that at the same time as there has been such a crackdown in the United States on personal vices like pot and porn, there has also been a huge rise in the exploitation of illegal immigrants—while in many ways the government has looked the other way. So on the one hand there has been this moralism about what people do in the privacy of their own homes, but very little crackdown on these businesses that are profiting enormously in the black market for labour.

"Next I am going to a write a book about prisons, and after that I am going to take a break from the dark side of this country, because I love America and I don't want to be so gloomy about it."