Philp: For Newsom, it’s as if California voters never passed Prop. 36

It is as if Proposition 36, the sentencing reform initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters in November, never happened.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest budget proposal continues to ignore Prop. 36’s call for expanded drug treatment opportunities for repeat drug users who seek to end their addiction as an alternative to a stiffer jail or prison sentence.

It appears that California’s leading Democrats prefer to perpetuate the dependency on deadly drugs than to comply with an initiative that they opposed.