Chris Morris, CNBC.com

Recreational users of marijuana are seeing price cuts on the street thanks to the growing number of states that have approved the drug for medicinal use.

The price of cannabis, of course, varies wildly — depending on the strain purchased, its potency and the parts of the plant. Top quality pot in New York, for example, costs nearly $442 per ounce, while low quality is just $161, according to one website that tracks costs, PriceofWeed.com.

On the whole, though, prices have been dropping nationwide over the past three to four years.

High Times magazine, in its October issue, declared “It’s a buyer’s market!”, noting that the average price per ounce nationwide had fallen $49 in the past month alone.

Oregon boasts the country’s cheapest pot, with the price of a high quality ounce running $259.13, according to PriceofWeed.com, a site that uses crowd-sourcing methodology to track marijuana prices around the country. (Anonymous users who buy the drug on the street input what they paid — and for how much — and the site averages out prices for the state or territory.) Montana comes in second at $273.87 per ounce. Both states are among the 14 to have passed laws allowing the medicinal use of the drug.

Georgia and Virginia are the states with the most expensive cannabis, both coming in at roughly $452 per ounce. Neither has legalized the drug in any form.

Geographically, pot tends to be more expensive along the East Coast — with the exceptions of Florida and Maine. Users there generally pay $425 or more for high quality product Midwest tokers pay a bit less.. And Western marijuana users – from Colorado onward –pay the least (typically less than $400 per ounce).

PriceofWeed.com is one of four sources insiders look to as they track the street price of pot. Allen St. Pierre, executive director of Norml (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) cites it as one his organization regularly monitors.

The others are the official DEA pricing index (which St. Pierre says is the least accurate), High Times’ monthly Trans-High Market Quotations, and Weedmaps.com, which has employees call medical dispensaries weekly for price, potency, strain name and more and then determines pricing trends from that information.

But even with the cost declines of the past few years, prices remain steep, which surprises some people.

“The vexation for the customer has been that for years, the individuals who would pay [high costs for recreational pot] did so because suppliers had all these legal threats,” says St. Pierre. “As that has been removed, there has not been a commensurate reduction in prices.”

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, though.

In California, the price of high-grade cannabis is down roughly 17% over the past 12 months — a trend that is likely to accelerate, due in part to changes in the business practices of marijuana farmers.

“Ten to 20 yeas ago, the people who were, for lack of a better term, the migrant marijuana workers were paid in cash,” says St. Pierre. “Two or three years ago, they started getting paid in product … which they have trouble converting to cash, so they logically begin selling it illegally. People are walking to the dispensary with the mindset that they’re going to pay X dollars, then these workers will undercut that by 50%. That phenomenon is the equivalent of having a wholesaler stop people before they walk into a Wal-Mart.”

The rise of city-sanctioned grow farms, like those being planned in Oakland, could also put pressure on street prices of pot, because it would substantially boost supply.

And if more states pass medical marijuana laws and wider legalization efforts prove successful down the road, that should continue to impact prices.

A recent California ballot initiative to legalize the sale and consumption of marijuana (as well as tax it) was defeated, partly because producers feared it would result in drastically lower prices.

St. Pierre says Norml expects the price could eventually fall to something comparable to a pack of cigarettes.

The active ingredient in marijuana cuts tumor growth in common lung cancer in half and significantly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread, say researchers at Harvard University who tested the chemical in both lab and mouse studies.

They say this is the first set of experiments to show that the compound, Delta-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), inhibits EGF-induced growth and migration in epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) expressing non-small cell lung cancer cell lines. Lung cancers that over-express EGFR are usually highly aggressive and resistant to chemotherapy.

THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer.

“The beauty of this study is that we are showing that a substance of abuse, if used prudently, may offer a new road to therapy against lung cancer,” said Anju Preet, Ph.D., a researcher in the Division of Experimental Medicine.

Acting through cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2, endocannabinoids (as well as THC) are thought to play a role in variety of biological functions, including pain and anxiety control, and inflammation. Although a medical derivative of THC, known as Marinol, has been approved for use as an appetite stimulant for cancer patients, and a small number of U.S. states allow use of medical marijuana to treat the same side effect, few studies have shown that THC might have anti-tumor activity, Preet says. The only clinical trial testing THC as a treatment against cancer growth was a recently completed British pilot study in human glioblastoma.

By Jacob Sullum

Yesterday the Drug Enforcement Administration said it plans to impose an emergency ban on the active ingredients in the marijuana substitutes known as K2 or spice. The products consist of dried herbs, ostensibly sold as incense, that have been sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids such as JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol. Starting one month from now, those chemicals, originally developed for research purposes, will be treated as Schedule I drugs, the most restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act. “Makers of these harmful products mislead their customers into thinking that ‘fake pot’ is a harmless alternative to illegal drugs, but that is not the case,” said acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart. “Today’s action will call further attention to the risks of ingesting unknown compounds and will hopefully take away any incentive to try these products.” Because that’s what happens when you ban drugs: People stop using them.

By Phillip Smith, Drug War Chronicle

After trailing on election day and all the way through most of the late vote counting, Arizona’s medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 203, pulled ahead at the end of last week and, with all votes counted, was declared the unofficial winner Saturday. The final tally had the measure winning, 50.1% to 49.9%. The measure won by about 5,000 votes out of more than 1.6 million cast.

“Voters in Arizona have sided with science and compassion while dealing yet another blow to our nation’s cruel and irrational prohibition on marijuana,” said Rob Kampia, Marijuana Policy Project executive director, in a statement greeting the outcome. “Arizona’s law now reflects the mainstream public opinion that seriously ill people should not be treated like criminals if marijuana can provide them relief, and that doctors should be able to recommend marijuana to patients if they believe it can help alleviate their suffering.”

The Marijuana Policy Project had advised and helped finance the campaign. Arizona will now become the 15th medical marijuana state when official results are announced November 29. The state will then have 120 days to create regulations.

Phillip Smith is an editor at DRCNet.

By NATE SILVER

Among other disappointments for liberals last Tuesday was the failure of California’s Proposition 19, which would have rewritten state law to allow local jurisdictions the right to regulate and tax the use of marijuana for personal consumption.

The measure, which was defeated 54 to 46 percent, had seemed destined to lose after polls found its position slipping in the final few months of the campaign.

Still, the defeat was a bitter one for advocates of liberalized drug laws, particularly since liberals had a strong night in California over all, re-electing Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, electing a new Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, and soundly defeating another ballot measure, Proposition 23, which would have suspended California’s stringent air pollution laws until its unemployment rate declined.

Proponents of marijuana legalization, like the group Norml, have put a happy face on the measure’s defeat, nothing that the 46 percent of the vote it achieved is better than any similar initiative in any other state, and that national polls show support for legalization having increased significantly over the past 10 or 15 years.

Others have been more skeptical, however. Tyler Cowen, a libertarian-leaning economist at George Mason University who writes columns for The Times, commented on his blog that “we’re seeing the high water mark for pot, as aging demographics do not favor the idea,” and that he couldn’t see marijuana “climbing the legalization hill, if it can’t make it through current-day California.”

The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle expressed similar sentiments, noting that parenthood — and the changes in attitude it can cause toward drug legalization — was a significant barrier to such initiatives passing.

The relationships between age, parenthood and views on marijuana are a bit complex, so it’s worth going to some effort to untangle them.