Jason Koebler and Emanuel Maiberg report:
As the state of Utah funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a private surveillance company building unproven technology to fight the opioid crisis, public health officials asked if the money could instead be used to buy a life saving drug that stops potentially fatal overdoses, Motherboard has learned.
The money, which Utah gave to a company called Banjo via the state’s Department of Health, in this instance totaled $250,000. Emails between the Utah Department of Health, the state’s Attorney General’s office, and the Drug Enforcement Agency obtained via public records request show that the Department of Health asked if some of the money allocated to Banjo via a program called DEA 360 could be used to buy naloxone (sometimes sold under the brand name Narcan), a medication used to counter the effects of an opioid overdose.
Read more on Vice.
h/t, Joe Cadillic