California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to increase punishments for people convicted of certain drug or theft crimes, rolling back reforms approved a decade ago to reduce the state’s prison population.
The citizen-initiated Proposition 36 had received 70% of the votes tallied by Wednesday morning.
The result reflects a dramatic shift in drug policy in even the most progressive states, as lawmakers grapple with the fallout from the fentanyl epidemic and perceptions that it is tied to spikes in homelessness and rampant shoplifting and other petty crimes.
California’s Proposition 36, titled the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, traced increases in homelessness, drug addiction, mental illness and property crimes 2014, when the voter-approved Proposition 47 reduced the legal consequences of many drug and property offenses.
The just-passed proposition creates a new felony charge for hard drug possession after two previous convictions, requiring treatment or prison. It also reclassifies non-prescription fentanyl as a hard drug, in the same category as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine; allows tougher sentences for dealers; and allows for enhanced penalties for people convicted of multiple thefts in an effort to combat what its authors call “an explosion of retail and cargo theft.”
Supporters, including major retailers Walmart, Target and Home Depot, raised more than $8 million, while opponents brought in less than $200,000, according to OpenSecrets.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) worked to chip away at the proposition’s support but said last week he would interfere if voters approve it. Groups opposing the measure say it is a misguided return to war-on-drugs policies that led to mass incarceration in previous decades.
Its passage comes after Oregon’s Democrat-controlled legislature voted in March to scrap key provisions of the state’s four-year-old Measure 110, a first-in-the nation program that reclassified personal possession of drugs to result in a fine and treatment rather than a criminal charge.
Decriminalization bills have faltered elsewhere, including in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. Efforts to get decriminalization measures on ballots in Washington and California in 2022 and 2024 never came to fruition.
Read more: California voters poised to toughen drug laws amid fentanyl crisis