Weed Entrepreneurs In Oregon And Alaska Celebrate Legalization

On Tuesday, marijuana prohibition suffered another defeat.

Voters in Washington, D.C., Oregon and Alaska followed Colorado and Washington in voting to legalize cannabis for recreational use. The historic votes signal victories for pro-legalization advocates hoping to bring legal cannabis to even more states in 2016.

Cannabis entrepreneurs in Oregon and Alaska, which are slated to open retail pot shops in coming years, say they are thrilled. (D.C.'s measure did not legalize the sale of marijuana.)

"I'm very excited. I've been medicating with marijuana since I was 21 years old," said Mario Mamone, who owns the medical marijuana dispensary Maritime Cafe in Clackamus County, Oregon, and who suffers from back spasms dating to the late 1960s when he was a soldier in Vietnam.

"I've always been afraid I'd be arrested and thrown in jail. But this lifts the stigma," he said.

But it's not all sunshine and roses for the marijuana industry that's developing in the Pacific Northwest. Cannabis entrepreneurs say the way legal weed is being rolled out by state governments can be problematic. Their concerns add to the growing pains experienced by advocates and regulators in trying to figure out the best way to safely regulate the fledgling industry.

For example, Oregon's historic vote on Tuesday won't do much to get Mamone's dispensary back in business. Maritime Cafe, which is located a few miles from downtown Portland and began providing Oregon residents with medical weed in 2011, was forced to close earlier this year when Clackamus County enacted a moratorium on cannabis sales.

"It's put us through some hardship," said Mamone. "We signed a lease on a new, bigger space next door [to our current location] before the moratorium, because we had no idea it was coming."

Mamone said he's been paying his $3,100-a-month rent plus all his bills every month, but the business "hasn't had any revenue since May."

He's been talking to county officials to try to lift the moratorium as soon as possible -- before the scheduled April 2015 end date -- but his business may have to remain shuttered until then.

Meanwhile in Portland, just a few miles away, medical weed is already being sold freely by dozens of medical dispensaries. Under the new law, those dispensaries will be eligible for a license to sell retail pot.

But not all of them are interested in doing that. Sally Bishop, the owner of Green Goddess Remedies, a shop that sells marijuana buds, edibles and THC concentrates, isn't sure she wants to branch out into the retail market, even though it could be lucrative for her and her family.

That's because she fears the retail weed industry will lead to lower-quality pot.

Green Goddess Remedies, in Portland, Oregon. (Photo: Sally Bishop)

"Retail changes the vibe. It becomes mass consumption. It turns into, like, Budweiser beer," said Bishop, a 49-year-old mother of two. "Whereas, here on the medical marijuana side of things, we have more of a microbrew mentality. Our growers take a lot of pride in what they do."

Oregon's new law will allow anyone 21 and older to possess up to 1 ounce of weed in a public place or 8 ounces at home. But there won't be recreational pot shops in Oregon for another couple of years. The state first must figure out how the system will be regulated and begin the process of issuing licenses to eligible entrepreneurs.

Unlike Washington, Oregon already had a fairly robust medical marijuana system in place when it legalized recreational weed. The state decriminalized pot back in the '70s and legalized it for medical use in 1998. Still, for years, medical patients had to grow their own weed (or have a caregiver grow it for them). Actual medical dispensaries weren't fully authorized to do business until this year.

Since Oregon already has a medical pot system in place -- and because taxes in Oregon will be lower than they currently are in Washington -- retail pot in Oregon is projected to be substantially cheaper than in neighboring Washington. In Oregon, it's predicted to be about $145 per ounce, while in Washington it gets sold for about $20 a gram, which works out to be over $500 per ounce.

In Alaska, things are different. Although the state legalized medical marijuana the same year Oregon did -- 1998 -- it never set up a dispensary system, forcing people to make arrangements to grow their own weed or obtain it on the black market.

As a result, Alaska may face some of the same difficulties that Washington has had in trying to create a dispensary system from scratch.

But pot entrepreneurs in the Last Frontier are still excited. "This is great for Alaska and great for America," said Michael Smith, who owns The Healing Center Medical Clinic in Anchorage, which doesn't sell medical marijuana but instead helps people obtain state-issued cards that let them grow their own.

Smith, 49, says he will definitely be applying for a state license to sell retail weed, but he won't be doing it in Anchorage, where he said he's heard talk of a possible moratorium on pot sales.

"You never know what politicians might do, what kind of pressure they could get from their constituencies," he said. "I mean, the vote here in Alaska was only 52 to 48 [percent], so it was a very close call. There's still a large demographic that could push against this."

Alaska's initiative doesn't allow local governments to criminalize marijuana, but it does allow them to ban the commercial industry.

So Smith bought a space in rural Alaska -- in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, to be precise -- where he plans to grow and sell recreational weed if he wins a license from the state. He said he's less afraid of a moratorium happening there.

"It's a little more liberal there than in Anchorage," he said. "They have a history up there of growing some well-known strains [of cannabis]. I mean, they've been growing Matanuska Thunderfuck since the '70s. So I think people up there are really going to come out to take advantage of the end of prohibition. And I wish everyone well, I really do."

Target Is Closing As Many Stores As It Opened Last Year

Target might have Alex, but the teen heartthrob isn't enough to save some of the company's stores from getting the ax.

The retail giant said Tuesday that it plans to shutter 11 underperforming stores by next February, about six months after it closed eight other locations. That brings the total number of closures to 19 this year -- as many locations as the company opened last year, according to its annual report.

“The decision to close a Target store is only made after careful consideration of the long-term financial performance of a particular location,” the company said in a statement. “All eligible store team members are being offered the option to transfer to other Target stores.”

Employees who choose not to transfer will receive severance payments, the statement said. The stores, closing by Feb. 1, 2015, include locations scattered throughout the South and Midwest. Evan Lapiska, a Target spokesman, said each store currently employs roughly 100 workers.

Target has struggled over the past year in the wake of a massive breach of customer data, which cost its chief executive his job. The company is also facing trouble as big-box retailers lose ground with shoppers to smaller stores and e-commerce sites.

In response, Target began testing smaller, urban express stores and beefed up its digital team in July. In this case, the company appears to be trimming fat as part of its turnaround strategy.

Here’s a full list of stores closing:

Lithonia, Georgia
8109 Mall Parkway
Lithonia, Ga.

Castleton, Indiana
8448 Center Run Drive
Indianapolis, Ind.

Monroe, Michigan
2121 N. Monroe St.
Monroe, Mich.

Clinton, Iowa
2900 S. 25th St.
Clinton, Iowa

Wichita East, Kansas
301 S. Towne East Mall Drive
Wichita, Kan.

Northland, Michigan
21400 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, Mich.

McHenry, Illinois
1860 N. Richmond Road
McHenry, Ill

Bay City, Michigan
4135 Wilder Road
Bay City, Mich.

Austin, Minnesota
1701 18th Ave. N.W.
Austin, Minn.

Calumet City, Illinois
1717 E. West Road
Calumet City, Ill.

Carrolton, Texas
2620 N. Josey Lane
Carrollton, Texas

This story has been updated with a comment from Target.

Nation's First Soda Tax Passes In Berkeley, Fails in San Francisco

Local ballot measures in California to create the nation’s first taxes on sugary drinks saw both victory and defeat Tuesday when a bill won in Berkeley and lost in neighboring San Francisco, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

San Francisco’s Proposition E proposed placing a 2-cents-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, defined as drinks containing added sugar and 25 calories or more per 12 ounces. Because the bill required that the money raised by the tax be set aside for specific spending -- health, nutrition, physical education and active recreation programs through the San Francisco Unified School District, Department of Public Health and Recreation and Park Department -- it required a two-thirds vote to pass.

PBS NewsHour calculated that a can of soda, typically 99 cents, would cost San Francisco residents closer to $1.24, and a two-liter soda, priced around $3.99, would cost more than $5.

Proposition E exempts diet sodas, milk and alternative milks such as soy or almond, beverages that contain only natural fruit and vegetable juice, infant formula, meal replacements, supplemental nutrition products and weight reduction beverages, and syrups and powders sold for individuals to create their own sugary beverages.

Berkeley’s Measure D proposed imposing a 1-cent-per-ounce general tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and sweeteners used to flavor drinks. The measure did not dedicate funding to a specific cause and required only a majority of the vote.

Similarly, Berkeley’s proposal makes exemptions for diet drinks, milk products, 100 percent juice, baby formula, alcoholic drinks taken for medical reasons, and sugary drinks and sweeteners distributed to very small retailers.

The ballot measures instigated massive spending by Big Soda. The opposition, which TIME noted was almost entirely funded by the American Beverage Association, raised $9.1 million in San Francisco and $2.4 million in Berkeley, a hefty campaign price tag in a city of just 116,000.

The bills’ supporters have argued that soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages are major contributors to the nation’s obesity epidemic and that taxing them will help address the health crisis. San Francisco’s city economist Ted Egan said the price hike would discourage people from buying sugary drinks and predicted residents would reduce their soda consumption by 31 percent.

Opposition to the bills argued that taxes are already high and that these measures unfairly target the beverage industry. The soda companies, Business Insider noted, have also touted recent decisions to remove all full-calorie sodas from schools as part of their pledge to to cut beverage calories consumed per person by 20 percent by 2025.

Why Obama And The Democrats Can't Get Any Love For The Economy

The U.S. economy is growing, unemployment is tumbling and stocks are at record highs. So why aren't President Barack Obama and the Democrats getting enough credit for that to avoid a big loss in Tuesday's midterm elections?

Maybe because, for way too many Americans, the economy might as well still be in recession.

Most of the benefits of the economic recovery that began in 2009 have accrued only to the wealthiest Americans. Middle-class Americans, meanwhile, have been left behind. Their wages and wealth have stagnated -- a key reason why polls show that most Americans think the economy is still in a recession, even though it technically started recovering five years ago.

Here's a chart, courtesy of Credit Suisse, that sums it up. It shows the ratio of wealth to household income, which has spiked during this recovery to levels not seen since just before the Great Depression:

This means the rich are getting richer at a much, much faster rate than the rest of us, who are not getting rich at all. The rich have benefited from a stock market that has more than doubled in value since 2009, while the average worker's wages have barely kept up with inflation:

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, wealthier Americans tend to vote Republican, and merely getting richer in the past few years has not been enough to make them switch teams. Wealthy Americans also donate money to Republican candidatess, including the ones who are widely expected to take over the Senate and extend their control over the House of Representatives in Tuesday's elections.

Not all elections hinge on the economy, but it's not hard to draw a pretty straight line from the current economy to the gloomy outlook for Democrats in this election. Most Americans say the economy is their top issue, according to several recent polls, and only 38 percent of Americans think the economy is in OK shape, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll. Just 35 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of the economy, according to Gallup.

Of course, midterm elections almost always go badly for the party that holds the White House. Going into the midterm election of 1986, President Ronald Reagan had a 60 percent approval rating and a decent economy on his side, and his party still lost control of the Senate and gave up a handful of seats in the House.

Aside from a one-off swoon in GDP in the first quarter, the economy has arguably been kinder to Obama in 2014 than it was to Reagan in 1986. GDP has bounced back sharply in the past two quarters. The unemployment rate has tumbled nearly a full percentage point this year, recently falling below 6 percent (compared with 7 percent for Reagan). The Dow and S&P 500 are constantly breaking records, and the Nasdaq is at levels not seen since the peak of the dot-com bubble in 2000.

But unemployment has fallen at least partly because workers are leaving the labor force, not because of a massive boom in hiring. Workers are giving up looking for work, either because of early retirement or because they've just lost hope, meaning they no longer count as "unemployed" in the eyes of the government.

Stock prices are at record highs, but most Americans don't own stocks. Middle-class workers who have managed to save a bit in 401(k) accounts don't have enough wealth to retire on for more than a year. Most stock gains have in fact gone to top earners, including CEOs, whose pay has skyrocketed to the point where they're making nearly 300 times as much as workers, as you can see in this chart from the Economic Policy Institute:

In thinking about 2014, a more telling comparison than 1986 is 1998, when President Bill Clinton enjoyed a great midterm election. The Republicans picked up no seats that year, the first such failure for a party out of the White House since 1934.

Clinton was lucky enough to be in office in the middle of the dot-com boom. That, of course, benefited the rich, just as the recent stock market rally has done. But in 1998, the middle class was getting a taste, too. Unemployment stayed below 5 percent all year -- close to what most economists would consider full employment. GDP was in the middle of a four-year growth boom of more than 4 percent annually, the strongest stretch since the 1960s.

Most importantly, hourly wage growth was more than twice the level of inflation that year, the biggest such gap since the early 1970s. In 1998, the middle class really felt like it was getting richer. That probably made it a lot easier to reward the party in power.

The 29 States Where You Can Still Be Fired For Being Gay

Tim Cook came out as gay in an essay in Businessweek on Thursday. He said that the unequal treatment LGBT employees face all over the country was a critical factor in his decision.

"I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences," Cook wrote. "Not everyone is so lucky."

Indeed, there is no federal law protecting LGBT workers against discrimination based on their sexual orientation. And while some states and cities have passed their own protections, there are still 29 states where you can actually be fired for being gay, leaving more than half of all total workers vulnerable to employment discrimination.

Most Americans incorrectly think that this problem has already been solved. A 2013 HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Americans think that firing people for being gay is illegal.

A proposed federal law called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would provide protections for all LGBT Americans working for employers with at least 15 employees. It's been introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, but has never passed.

Apple's home state of California has some of the most robust anti-discrimination laws in the country, and the company itself is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.

"If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy," Cook wrote in his essay.

The 29 States Where You Can Still Be Fired For Being Gay

Tim Cook came out as gay in an essay in Businessweek on Thursday. He said that the unequal treatment LGBT employees face all over the country was a critical factor in his decision.

"I’ve had the good fortune to work at a company that loves creativity and innovation and knows it can only flourish when you embrace people’s differences," Cook wrote. "Not everyone is so lucky."

Indeed, there is no federal law protecting LGBT workers against discrimination based on their sexual orientation. And while some states and cities have passed their own protections, there are still 29 states where you can actually be fired for being gay, leaving more than half of all total workers vulnerable to employment discrimination.

Most Americans incorrectly think that this problem has already been solved. A 2013 HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 69 percent of Americans think that firing people for being gay is illegal.

A proposed federal law called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would provide protections for all LGBT Americans working for employers with at least 15 employees. It's been introduced in nearly every Congress since 1994, but has never passed.

Apple's home state of California has some of the most robust anti-discrimination laws in the country, and the company itself is an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.

"If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy," Cook wrote in his essay.

Nikkei Soars As Bank Of Japan Announces Unexpected Stimulus Measures

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's central bank surprised the financial world and pleased investors Friday by intensifying its purchases of government bonds and other assets to try to revive a chronically anemic economy.

The Bank of Japan's move to pump trillions more yen into the financial system is intended to stimulate spending in the world's third-largest economy. It's an acknowledgement that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has so far failed in its broad efforts to revive growth, especially after a sales tax hike took effect in April. The latest data show consumer spending falling, unemployment rising and excessively low inflation dipping further.

By injecting more money into the economy, the government hopes to raise expectations of higher inflation and thereby encourage people to spend and fuel growth.

Coinciding with the central bank's move, Japan's $1.1 trillion public pension fund acted Friday to move money out of low-yielding bonds and into higher-yielding but riskier stocks to try to improve its investment returns and meet its obligations to a swelling number of retirees. Abe said the move was needed to ensure that the fund can meet its future obligations. Japan is rapidly aging, and its population is shrinking as birth rates decline.

Across the world, investors responded by pouring money into stocks in anticipation that the Bank of Japan's action would mean lower bond yields, higher stock prices and a cheaper yen, which would make Japan's goods more affordable overseas.

After the government's announcements, Japan's Nikkei 225 stock index soared 4.8 percent to close at a seven-year high, and the dollar rose 2 percent against the yen. European stock markets also jumped, along with the Dow Jones industrial average.

The central bank said it will increase its purchases of government bonds and other assets by between 10 trillion yen and 20 trillion yen ($91 billion to $181 billion) to about 80 trillion yen ($725 billion) annually.

The move is striking in its timing: It comes two days after the U.S. Federal Reserve did the reverse by ending its own asset-purchase program, which had pumped $3 trillion-plus into the U.S. economy over the past six years. The Fed is pulling back because, in contrast to Japan's, the U.S. economy is showing consistent improvement.

The Bank of Japan's move raises pressure on the European Central Bank to follow suit. The ECB has been considering aggressive steps to invigorate the ailing eurozone economy, which is suffering from weak growth and too-low inflation.

Ultra-low inflation can hurt an economy because it typically leads people to postpone purchases in expectation that prices will go even lower. It also makes the inflation-adjusted cost of loans more expensive. And it raises the risk of deflation — a drop in prices, wages and the value of stocks, homes or other assets that can further slow spending and tip an economy into recession.

Japan has been stuck in a deflationary trap for most of two decades — a big reason its economy has barely grown.

It's far from clear that Japan's latest move will succeed where Abe's government has so far failed in a multi-pronged effort to boost growth and inflation.

BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda said the action was need to prevent a reversal into a "deflationary mindset" that has stymied growth by discouraging spending.

Countering such a trend is "the most important thing we can do," Kuroda said. "Whatever we can do, we will."

Harumi Taguchi, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said the Bank of Japan was spooked by signs the economy could slip back into deflation. The Bank of Japan had declined at its last meeting Oct. 7. But the "pressure had increased over the past few days and weeks," Taguchi said. "There was a mounting sense of urgency."

A measure of core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, has fallen to nearly 1 percent, Taguchi noted. Falling oil prices could push overall inflation even lower. And a planned increase in the nation's sales tax next year could weaken spending and growth.

Such a tax would raise the sales tax by an additional 2 percentage points to 10 percent, after the sales tax rose from 5 percent to 8 percent in April. This year's tax hike was intended to reduce Japan's enormous debt but has slowed the nation's fitful economic recovery. Abe is expected to introduce supplementary spending to try to cushion the impact of the tax.

The central bank said its stimulus spending would continue as long as needed to attain an inflation target of 2 percent. In addition to stepping up asset purchases, the Bank of Japan will triple its purchases of exchange-traded funds and real estate investment trusts and increase the average maturity of the assets it holds to 10 years from seven years.

Its main decisions on expanding its stimulus passed by a 5-4 vote, revealing a sharp split among the bank's policy board members.

Analysts noted that by reducing the yen's value compared with other currencies like the U.S. dollar, the Bank of Japan's moves would likely give Japan's exporters a competitive edge.

"We will all benefit ultimately from a successful Japan," said Lewis Alexander, chief U.S. economist at the investment bank Nomura. "Maybe it's a slight drag to the U.S. economy in the short term. But if this contributes to the long-run success of Japan, we'll all be better off."

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AP Business Writer Matthew Craft in New York contributed to this report.