for just $79.99 a month for six months. that's like getting all three incredible fios services for the price of two. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v today. this is fios. this is big. tonight on "nightline," over the hump? on the day the dow plunged once again, what you need to know about the real state of america's economy. is this the beginning of the end of the slump or the end of the beginning? and high times. lisa ling tries to get a doctor's recommendation for medical marijuana. will it work? in an area where are -- where there are more places selling pot than starbucks coffee what do you think? and like a virgin, and miley cyrus and the jonas brothers, all squaring off. how come chastity is once again a sign of the times and what happens to the celebrities who embraced abstinence the last time around? captions paid for by abc, inc. good evening, i'm cynthia mcfadden. we begin with the state of the economy. it's been suffering from major mood swings of date. the dow took a beating today, dropping over 180 points. we have heard the rumblings that the recession is over, that the bottom has been reached. yet the foreclosure rate remains high, people are still losing their jobs and those back to school sales are attracting few shoppers. what's the disconnect? is as president obama says the worst really behind us? john donvan reports on what you and your family need to know about the road to recovery. >> we all know where we want to be as a nation, as an economy, after this long, long season of signs that say this and front doors that look like this. and a job market that looks like this. where we want to be, we wish we could. we wish we could is out of the woods, back on track. over the hump. and can it be true what this "newsweek" cover said a couple of weeks ago as several big companies are actually reporting profits and people with street cred are saying this. >> they are emphatic that recovery begins this summer. >> and this. >> well, then your predicted -- it is real? >> i do think it's real. i think that we have enough cumulative signs now that we've come through the worst and not only are things just less bad, we are starting to see some pockets of improvement. >> hey, it looks like we are climbing out, right? except -- except the bell rings today and the market is down 2% in just 6 1/2 hours and the latest unemployment numbers come out with nearly a quarter million jobs gone last month. while home foreclosures reach an all-time record high. and you have to ask where is this train taking us? and can we know when one smart economist today tells us this -- >> i think we are technically out of the recession. i think it ended in the second quarter. maybe may or june. >> another smart anyist tells us this -- >> everywhere we look, especially employment, there's no signs of gains. >> as we look at the series of economic markers with both the smart people, the stock market the same thing kept happens. the bottom line is the big rally was in march. >> i think the stock market was doing the job that it does so well, which is lead the economy. it's one of the key leading indicators for the economy and it almost always turns first before the economy does. >> but barry ritzholtz looks back earlier than march. >> look in 1973, '74, the market was down 74%. and so to take any specific move by the stock market and think it has some significant economic forecasting ability is to ignore history. >> what about jobs? the labor department reported the number of people requesting unemployment benefits for first time many july was a quarter of a million. but the fact that earlier in the year there were months when the number was more than twice that has sonders saying -- >> we have never been in a recession when we have seen the um employment rates drop that big. >> and at best, it's prevented another half a million layoffs from taking place. >> what about consumer spending? it's now down more than 8% from last year and ritzholtz does not see that trend turning. >> you know, the consumers are pretty much spent out. they're not seeing the wages go up. not seeing the readily available jobs, and in real terms meaning the adjusted for inflation, their incomes have gone down. so i don't want to really hold my breath waiting for the consumer to come back. i think it's a good couple of years before sports shopping and retail therapy are back in vogue. >> sonders doesn't argue much with that point, but she sees a different kind of comeback. >> i think businesses, consumers, investors to some degree, they went into such lockdown mode that i think the pop you're going go tote go from the coiled spring is going to generate a quarter or two, maybe more, of better than expected readings for the economy. >> and then housing. the part of the story we all understand and to which we're nearly all connected. >> we still have a tremendous amount of inventory out there and a lot more in terms of foreclosures, likely to happen over the next two years. >> we're at least in less bad mode for housing, so i think that turn is in. but it's likely to be a bumpy path on the housing more broadly. >> oh, that's bad. that's what this train ride is all about. we were sliding backwards fast, and now we're sliding less fast, which is better than before, was does not mean we're out of the woods. i'm john donvan for "nightline" in washington. >> hoping for a better tomorrow. our thanks to john donvan. when we come back, high society. how easy it is to buy pot legally these days? 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"♪ i always feel like somebody's watching me. ♪ it's the money you could be saving with geico. marijuana is quietly sold on the street corners across the countr and illegally grown in many backyards. but in california, it's sold legally. in fact, the sale of medical marijuana has become big business in the state. generating millions of dollars in sales. just how easy is it to get a doctor's note for a medical marijuana in california? well, we sent contributor lisa ling to find out. ♪ >> in los angeles, you can buy marijuana in more places than you can get a starbucks latte. pot dispensaries are popping up everywhere here. all you have to do buy pot here is get a doctor's note and that is now little more than a formality. the list of accepted ailments is so broad virtually anyone can get a doctor's recommendation, including me. >> lisa, dr. frankel. >> nice to meet you. thank you for seeing me. i definitely have had a lot of anxiety over the last few months. so i wanted to see whether i would qualify for a recommendation. >> have you ever used cannabis previously? >> not regularly. i have used it before. >> in the past, you never had any problems with it? >> no. >> dr. howard frankel gave up a traditional medical practice to recommend marijuana full-time. how's your business been over the last three years you have been doing it? >> business in the last year certainly since the fall has gotten a lot busier. one of the major points that i try to make to patients is smoking not the same as cannabis. it's a medication. >> is it pretty easy to get a recommendation? >> not as easy as getting a vicodin prescription, but yeah, it's easy. i don't think it should be difficult. >> what do you say to people who say you're contributing to drug use? >> well, i think that's true. i think it's similar to the patients who have lied to me over years for vicodin or clonapin or whatever. >> do you think i qualify for it? >> yeah, but i have to examine you first. have you ever had problems with blo blood pressure? >> no, i'm pretty healthy. >> let me -- okay. you seem okay. >> what if i were lying and wanted to get a recommendation? >> the way you did, you'd get one. >> anyone who came in and said they had any one of those ailments, you would write them a recommendation? >> in i thought they were he yet matt -- legitimate patients and together people, absolutely. if you're lying, enjoy it anyway. >> are you a user of it? >> yes. >> just wondering. >> definitely. >> this is your recommendation here. fold it up and keep it in your wallet. i keep mine with me at all times. >> that easy. you're all set. >> this is the pharmacy. one of three in the los angeles area. we have right down the street from ucla. we are on a public street. we built this store for the image of a mother and her children, adolescents being able to come in. those are for people who don't want to inhale and we have a certified kitchen. it's actually kosher as well. >> this is the menu. >> uh-huh. usually we have 30 varieties of medical cannabis you can choose from. >> how much would this be? >> the royal kush is $20 a gram. this is 3.5 grams. about 60 bucks. >> we actually control the amount they can buy. we have a maximum and they can -- >> that's just your company? >> right. that's where the other dispensaries are making a lot of money. a lot of them sell large quantities. it's a big business. >> this is a perfectly legal business in california, but federal laws still treats marijuana dispensaries as drug dealing operations. >> so there are active firefights that go on? >> absolutely. >> and because marijuana cultivation is illegal, growing pot is a highly profitable and highly dangerous business. >> there's such a tremendous profit in these gardens that these people are protecting their value at all costs. >> laurie smith is the sheriff in northern california's upscale santa clara county. >> it is confusing. in california we've wrestled a long time with it's illegal by federal law, how can it be illegal by california. >> how do you enforce the federal marijuana laws here in santa clara? >> if someone has the prescription or the recommendation from the doctor we don't enforce the law at all. we go with what california law is. >> in santa clara county, the health department issued medical marijuana cards. while the sheriff's department is overwhelmed with eradicating marijuana farms. >> it's very challenging because there is such a market for marijuana, and not enough ability to produce the amount that's needed for the medicinal marijuana. therefore, we have the illegal grows. >> how big is the problem? >> it's a huge problem. we're an urban county with approximately 2 million people and we have a huge number of growth. >> let's go over the marijuana field that was eradicated a couple months ago. it's just over a mile away from that youth center where you can see kids playing soccer right now. >> the day that we were doing the eradication, we could hear them over there playing. >> smith says each plant is worth about $3,000. one recent eradcation here netted 32,000 plants a value of $96 million. confusing times for law enforcement, but lucrative for the cannabis industry. forcing questions about whether the state should collect tax revenue from marijuana sales. >> we are marijuana consumers. we want to pay our fair share. >> in 2006, a dispensary run by winslow norton paid taxes. how much did you pay? >> we paid $4 million in sales tax revenue to the state. it was the biggest cooperative in california. >> how much were grossing? >> close to $50 million. over a thousand people a day came and savrnl -- and average sale was uppars of $100 a patient. >> in 2007, federal agents raided and shut down their dinse pencery -- dispensary even though the local officials had approved the operation. you were working with the sheriff. >> definitely working with the sheriff. >> the permit has the signature of the sheriff of alameda county and of the county supervisors. it's funny that they seized all of the money or assets that me and my brother had. but they didn't request the board of equalization to return the money that we -- >> even though it was collected for the sale of marijuana. >> right. >> so they have loopholes. >> the new obama administration has dialled back raids on dispensaries. they say only operations that violate both state and federal law will be targeted. so where does that leave the north -- nortons? >> if it's true what they said, how does it affect our case? we did not break any state or local laws. >> the nortons still face life in prison. how obama's justice department deals with them could be a sign of a shift in federal marijuana policy. what do you hope happens? >> we hope that people saw that we did nothing wrong, that california sees that we were a good help and we can generate $4 million sales tax a year and that's just one dispensary. >> for now it is federal law and marijuana is illegal to buy, possess or sell anywhere in the country. but to many californians, that's just dopey. i'm lisa ling for "nightline" in los angeles. >> a final note from california, the la brea wildfire that has charred acres in the national forest has been found to have been started by a cooking fire in a marijuana drug trafficking operation. our thanks to lisa ling. when we come back, why saying no to sex is tonight's "sign of the times". 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[ chuckles ] wow! good luck getting your remote back. it's all right -- i love this channel. shopping less and saving more. now, that's progressive. call or click today. hollywood has always had its share of bad boys and beastly boys, but recently, virginity has gotten a ringing endorsement. if you thought you heard this story before, maybe you have. for david wright, this oft told tale is "a sign of the times". >> look up to the stars and you'll see virgo is rising. abstinence is in. celibacy sells. just ask the jonas brothers. last year's mtv music awards, british comedian russell brand ridiculed their pledge to save themselves for marriage. >> it is a little bit ungrateful because they can literally have sex with any woman that they want. but they're not going to do it. they're like superman just deciding not to fly. >> but brand got his comeuppance. >> i have one thing to say about promise rings -- it's not bad to wear a promise ring because not everybody guy or girl wants to be a slut. so anyway -- >> certainly not "american idol" jordin sparks. she too wears a promise ring. >> we all wear purity rings. it means we're going to be pure, not have sex until we're married. >> while that's fodder for parody on shows like "south park", chastity is becoming a trend. from miley cyrus to quarterback tim tebow, abstinence is in. >> there's a move in hollywood to appear as virginal as possible, because the longer you can hold on to that there's a mystique. >> in the '50's virginity was presumed to be the rule not the exception. remember the scene from "grease". ♪ legally wed >> in the '70's and '80's brooke shields made virginity her career. never mind she played a 14-year-old prostitute in "pretty baby". >> my heart is beating so fast. >> mine too. >> or that she lost her virginity at age 15 in "the blue lagoon" or at 16 again at "endless love". in real life, brooke shields remained a virgin until age 22. more recently there's britney spears whose more of a cautionary tale. despite provocative videos, playing to the school girl fetishes of dirty old men. ♪ she claimed to be a virgin only to have her boyfriend spill the beans. >> good morals means waiting to have sex until after you're married. did she you and live up to this in your relationship? >> sure. sure. >> justin timberlake opened up that he had sex with britney spears so he was not a virgin. didn't hurt her career though. she did even better. >> i think that these kind of outward signs, i have had sex or i didn't have sex is a little bit like bragging. because first of all, you cannot check if it's true. >> dr. ruth says promise rings with all well and good. >> they want to wear a ring, let them wear a ring. let them have the rings rather than the tattoos, because the rings once they're lovers, they can take off and have good sex. >> their fans will probably be just as curious about that. i'm david wright for "nightline" in washington. >> our thanks to dave wright and dr. ruth. when we come back, forget what the experts are saying, does it feel like the recession is over for you and your family? tonight's "closing argument." (announcer) now when verizon brings fios straight to your home, you can get amazing tv, internet and phone for just $79.99 a month for six months. that's like getting all three incredible fios services for the price of two. call the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tty/v today. this is fios. this is big.