--- title: "Instead of Using Opioid Settlement Money to Help Poor Communities, Police Are Buying Flock Cameras to Play With" description: "Money paid by pharmaceutical giants in the wake of the opioid crisis is ending up in the hands of police departments." date: "2026-08-30" modified: "2026-08-30" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins" url: "https://futurism.com/health-medicine/opioid-settlement-money-poor-communities-police-flock-cameras" categories: - "Future Society" - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Privacy" - "RX and Medicine" - "Treatments" --- # Instead of Using Opioid Settlement Money to Help Poor Communities, Police Are Buying Flock Cameras to Play With ![A photo illustration of a Flock camera in front of police tape.]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* With over 100,000 automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) sprouting out of the ground over the past few years, you might be tempted to ask: "with what money?" Drug money, as it turns out, though it's not exactly what you might think. A bombshell investigation [by *Mother Jones*]() found that police departments across the US are using settlement money from the opioid crisis meant for struggling communities to instead fund Flock surveillance cameras. All together, *Mother Jones* identified 19 agencies across ten different states which spent nearly $1 million of opioids settlement funds on ALPRs from companies like Flock and Axon (though the publication notes that's almost certainly an undercount.) The funding pipeline looks like this: after massive pharmaceutical firms agreed to pay out a combined $50 billion for their role in the opioid crisis, state agencies responsible for allocating those funds decided that police departments would make efficient use of the dough. Police agencies — which already account for one of the largest shares of [municipal expenditures]() in the US overall — made a heartwarming pitch: send us that opioid money, and we'll use it to buy new police toys and stamp out drug dealers. As police departments across the US have made abundantly clear, ALPR systems are much better for [stalking]() and [harassing]() innocent civilians than they are for [actually fighting crime](). And when it comes to combatting the opioid crisis, specifically, there are perhaps few police toys *less* suited to the task. "While $50 billion may seem like a lot of funds, once it's divided up over 18 years and thousands of localities, a lot of places really aren't getting that much, particularly given the scope of the crisis," Robyn Oster, director of policy at the Partnership to End Addiction told *Mother Jones*. "Whatever funds you're spending on a camera, you're not spending on getting someone into treatment." Overall, it's a slap in the face to anybody victimized by the man-made public health emergency that was — and [still is]() — the opioid crisis. Rather than funding state-run rehab clinics or harm reduction campaigns, that money is being flushed away into AI surveillance cameras so that police can catch hardened criminals [legally buying weed](), or [picking up petty cash]() from the ground. "It's just really not the way to make the most impact in addressing addiction," Oster said. **More on Flock:** *[Flock's Network Is Losing Value to Cops as More and More of Its Cameras Go Offline]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()