The price of cannabis, of course, varies wildly—depending on the strainpurchased, 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 Mid-west 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 ofNorml(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" magazine's monthly Trans-High Market Quotations, and Weedmaps.com, which has employees call medical dispensaries weekly for price, potency, strain name and more and then determining pricing trends from that information.

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