The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER and the Daily Herald. 

Firearms, ballistic vests, breathalyzers, police vehicles, wages for law enforcement officers — these are some of the ways counties are using the money they received to combat the opioid crisis.

Utah counties have taken a combined $56 million from national legal settlements, with additional money expected in coming years.

Only a small portion of the money has been spent, but the uses are almost as diverse as the counties themselves, ranging from housing and wellness programs to treatment for inmates and Naloxone.

A handful of counties — namely Salt Lake, Utah and Sevier — have also prioritized some of their funds for law enforcement, according to public records obtained by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project.

Some experts worry pumping more money into traditional policing isn’t effective. Brandon del Pozo, a retired police chief and Brown University professor who studies the intersection of law enforcement and public health, said many of those traditional tactics have either not worked or made situations worse.

“To say we’re just going to do those things harder and with more funding might not be the best use of funds,” he said. “It definitely makes sense to invest in policing responses to the opioid crisis — but it’s not like if we just enforce that much harder or that much more vigorously or with that many more weapons or vehicles that we could have stopped this from happening.”

‘A really important role’

Law enforcement officers have been on the front lines of the opioid crisis for decades. They’re the first to respond to countless overdoses and are often tasked with handling the consequences of substance misuse.

Not all police responses to the opioid crisis, however, are created equal. Research suggests that some tactics have exacerbated the problem.

A 2023 study, for example, found police seizures were associated with an increase in overdoses in nearby areas. A Canadian study found that increased policing often discouraged those with addiction from accessing life-saving services like supervised consumption, also known as overdose prevention sites. Previous negative interactions with police can also discourage individuals from calling 911 in the case of an overdose. And a 2022 study from Penn State College of Medicine found that traditional policing was associated with a risk of future overdose deaths and did not reduce future arrests or jail time.

“Traditional criminal justice pathways of arrest, prosecution, and incarceration with enforced abstinence have not been effective in slowing the opioid epidemic,” reads the 2022 study.

Del Pozo stressed, though, that cutting out law enforcement entirely won’t solve the opioid crisis. Instead, it’s a matter of homing in on more effective tactics, like training officers on the science of addiction and creating bridges between the criminal justice system and treatment.

“Police in the United States have a really important role in the overdose crisis,” del Pozo said. “Treatment is a form of crime reduction. And as police grow to understand that, they see a lot of these alternatives to just ‘the business as usual’ policing as more feasible.”

Every interaction police have with someone experiencing addiction is a chance to link that person with treatment and recovery options, said del Pozo.

A holistic approach?

Officials in Salt Lake and Utah counties – the two largest in the state – opted to fund a variety of programs beyond law enforcement.

On the other hand, while Sevier County has spent just 18% of its settlement funds so far, all of that $72,000 has been allocated to the Sheriff’s Office. The county does not track the funds once they’ve been transferred into the sheriff’s budget, and Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Curtis said he hadn’t previously tracked the funds in one place prior to a request from the Utah Investigative Journalism Project.

A spreadsheet Curtis compiled shows expenses between July 2023 and June 2024 mostly went to wages for deputies assigned to drug court and pretrial services, with smaller portions spent on training, Naloxone and drug testing supplies. Curtis noted the data “did not include the cost of any of the equipment the employees use as it is not as easily broken down.”

Salt Lake County has used its opioid money to award several grants for projects like expanding a recovery center, hiring a health data specialist to collect and analyze opioid-related data and kickstarting a substance use program for pregnant and postpartum mothers.

“We’re looking at the full spectrum,“ said Kelly Colopy, the county’s Human Services director.

The second largest of the grants the county approved went to fund two sheriff officer positions to work in partnership with a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force. That grant was $780,000, or 18%, of the county’s approved settlement budget. The county also gave the Sheriff’s Office a smaller grant of $46,000 to expand treatment in the jail.

A letter of understanding for the county’s grant to fund DEA officers states their duties include providing agencies with technical assistance and training relating to opioid trends and overdose death investigations.

Colopy said the officers’ focus is not on cracking down on crime but on training, partnership building and regional coordination. Documents the county provided in response to a records request did not include any breakdown of how the grant money has been used, but Colopy said the grant only covers the officers’ salaries.

Although Utah County’s opioid overdose rate is lower than the state average, county administrator Ezra Nair said the impact is much larger than most people realize.

“Unfortunately, the needs are going to continue for the foreseeable future. This isn’t like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll just pay you a billion dollars, and the opioid problem is gone,’” Nair said. “This is now completely integrated in our communities. It is a problem that affects all facets of our society and our county government.”

The county allocated nearly half of its settlement funds to Wasatch Behavioral Health — far more than any other department. Smaller portions went to the health department and to funding a nurse focused on opioid treatment in the jail. Previous reporting by The Investigative Project shows the county did not have medically-assisted treatment for opioid addiction using methadone available in the jail, although it did provide some medications to help with withdrawal. Methadone use is still limited in the jail, but county spokesperson Richard Piatt said the jail nurse can and does administer it.

Twelve percent of the county’s opioid spending went to the Sheriff’s Office. It was used to bolster the probation program, training, funding undercover positions and equipping officers with Naloxone, according to spokesperson Sgt. Raymond Ormond.

An analysis of the county’s opioid settlement records found the Sheriff’s Office spent $414,091 on officers’ wages and benefits, $186,245 on police vehicles, $24,672 on police equipment like ballistic vests, firearm optic sights and radios, $2,800 on uniforms and $2,568 on firearms.

Utah County officials said those purchases went directly to the officer positions funded by the settlement money and that any equipment replacements would come out of the county’s general fund.

“To be able to have those positions, we’ve got to have the equipment,” Ormond said. “Those positions are ones that are, especially our task force positions, are a dangerous position … that’s the unfortunate aspect of our job as law enforcement, is we do need those tools, that equipment and that training.”

Ormond understands where critics of traditional policing are coming from, especially as someone who’s seen both overdoses and opioid addictions firsthand among family members. It’s one of the reasons he got into law enforcement two decades ago.

“I wish there was a way that we could convince people to not use drugs, if the world didn’t need cops, I’d be all for it,” he said. “But (by) the same token, until we can get to that point as a community, we’re going to need law enforcement that’s going to have to try to combat the drugs.”

Del Pozo said while officers need to be prepared, more investment in policing misses the mark.

“The idea of using opioid settlement money to buy tactical gear and weapons doesn’t seem like it’s in the spirit of what’s going to reduce the overdose crisis in America,” he said.