DENVER -- Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug for recreational use, according to a new ABC-Washington Post poll. Both numbers are far higher than a decade ago.

With New Jersey this week poised to become the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana, 81 percent in the national survey support the idea. That's up from an already substantial 69 percent in 1997.

Indeed, the main complaint is with restrictions on access, as in the New Jersey law.

Fifty-six percent say that if medical marijuana use is allowed, doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help. New Jersey’s measure, which is more restrictive than most, limits prescriptions to people with severe illnesses, including, "Cancer, glaucoma, positive HIV/AIDS status or other chronic, debilitating diseases or medical conditions that produce, or the treatment of which produces, wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, or severe and persistent muscle spasms," according to a New Jersey Senate press release. State health officials can add to the list of medical conditions.

Aside from medical marijuana, there have been recent efforts to decriminalize recreational use of marijuana in some states.

A preliminary vote on one such measure is to be held in the Washington state legislature this week. In California, organizers say they’ve collected enough signatures to hold a statewide referendum on the issue next fall. And a separate proposal in California to legalize and tax the drug cleared a legislative committee last week.

A poll in California last spring found 56-percent support for the idea, which its backers say would raise $1.3 billion a year.

Nationally, this survey found 46-percent support for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use –- the same as it was last spring, and well above its level in past years. For example, 39 percent of respondents supported the idea in 2002 and 22 percent in 1997.

Age is a factor in who supports relaxing marijuana restrictions.

Just 23 percent of senior citizens favor legalizing marijuana for personal use. That jumps to 51 percent of adults under age 65.

There are political and ideological differences as well. Thirty percent of conservatives and 32 percent of Republicans favor legalization, compared with 49 percent of Independents, 53 percent of Democrats, 53 percent of moderates and 63 percent of liberals.