New York voters strongly support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday.

The poll found 63 percent of New York voters now support legalizing pot, the highest level of support on record for the state, compared to 32 percent who oppose the idea.

The changing attitudes come as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has softened his stand on the issue, and candidates for governor Cynthia Nixon, a Democrat, and Joel Giambra, a Republican making an independent bid, have called for making recreational marijuana legal.

At least eight states and the District of Columbia have already legalized recreational marijuana.

In January, Cuomo asked state agencies to study the potential health and economic impacts of legalizing pot.

Last year, Cuomo also proposed decriminalizing marijuana, and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., last month introduced a bill in Congress to decriminalize pot on the federal level.

The Quinnipiac poll was conducted April 26 through May 1 by live interviewers who called landlines and cell phone. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

The support for legalizing marijuana in New York is up 7 percentage points from a February poll by the Siena College Research Institute. That poll found 56 percent of New York voters supported legalizing marijuana, with 40 percent opposed.

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