Will the State of California legalize Marijuana?

A new poll shows that a majority of Californians now favor legalizing marijuana for recreational use. But the results bring up more questions than answers. Such as: Do they favor legalization philosophically or in practice?

How will they feel when it's being sold in their neighborhood? The Field Poll released Wednesday found 54 percent of the state's registered voters (with a 3.5 percent margin of error) support legalizing marijuana and letting it be sold and taxed like alcohol. This is a change: In 2010, the same poll found 50 percent support, and later that year voters rejected legalization in a ballot proposition.

Go back further, and legalized pot was truly a fringe cause, backed by only 30 percent in a 1983 poll and 13 percent in a 1969 survey. Naturally, pot promoters will find in this poll new hope for a planned 2014 ballot initiative to legalize the drug, as measures in the states of Washington and Colorado did in 2012. But if California's experience with medical marijuana is any guide, there may be a big difference between favoring legalization in theory and wanting it on your block.

This week's Field Poll showed California's 16-year-old law permitting medical marijuana is supported by 72 percent of registered voters -- and that 58 percent would not mind having dispensaries in their city. You don't need to be a math wizard to see the problem here. Like it in general.

If the same gap applied to recreational marijuana, wouldn't only about 40 percent want it in their towns? That's the difference between another state victory for marijuana legalization supporters and failure in the country's most populous state. As residents of Los Angeles, Long Beach and other Southern California cities are well aware, where medical marijuana is concerned the devil remains in the details, with city leaders still figuring out how to (or not to) regulate its distribution and the federal government continuing to be opposed.

By the way, support for legalizing recreational pot was stronger in the San Francisco Bay Area than in Southern California, stronger among younger than older respondents, stronger among men than women and stronger among non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans than among Latinos. There still are huge segments of the public for whom legalizing pot for party use would be anything but welcome. Backers of such a plan have a lot of persuading to do.