A firm majority of California voters now favors legalizing marijuana for recreational use, signaling a significant change in attitude from ambivalence in recent years and outright hostility three decades ago, suggests a new Field Poll reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. Fifty-four percent of registered voters supported legalizing the drug and subjecting it to the same sort of restrictions that exist for alcohol. Forty-three percent opposed the idea, and 3 percent had no opinion. The last time the Field organization surveyed Californians’ attitudes on allowing recreational use of marijuana, 50 percent were in favor. That was in 2010, four months before voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have legalized pot, by 54 percent to 46 percent. The latest numbers reflect a quantum leap from the Field Poll’s first measure of Californians on the subject, in 1969, when only 13 percent favored legalization. That approval figure had grown to only 30 percent in a 1983 Field Poll. This reflects a gradual evolution of California voters on a number of issues. They seem to be becoming more liberal in their views,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. “A lot of that has to do with the changing demographics. “Baby Boomers are replacing their parents, and they have been exposed to marijuana all their lives,” he said.