Technology Mogul’s $17-Million Gift to Fight Meth Attracts Controversy

When it comes to combating methamphetamine use, the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, in Palo Alto, Calif., is the unquestioned

forerunner among private grant makers.

Over the past two years, Mr. Siebel, a technology magnate whose software company, Siebel Systems, merged with the Oracle Corporation last year, has given $12-million through his foundation to create and operate the Montana Meth Project, in Missoula.

Mr. Siebel, a part-time Montana resident who owns two cattle ranches in the state, also pledged $5-million to the organization in November, provided it raises that amount from other sources.

Unlike many other efforts, the Montana Meth Project focuses solely on deterring people from using the drug — its tagline is “Not Even Once.” The rationale, says Peg Shea, the group’s executive director, is that “prevention is usually the least well-funded area. If you can help prevent first-time use, it will reduce treatment demand and help law enforcement.”

In its short life span, the organization has earned praise from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and other government agencies for blanketing Montana’s airwaves and landscapes with in-your-face public-service announcements aimed at 12-to-17-year-olds.

The grim scenarios include a television spot about a girl who wishes she’d broken her neck in a car crash en route to a party rather than using meth at that party for the first time. A print ad depicts a filthy public toilet along with the words: “No one thinks they’ll lose their virginity here. Meth will change that.”

Yet the group has also been criticized by some nonprofit officials, who say such scare tactics not only are ineffective, but may also convey the false impression that there is a methamphetamine epidemic and minimize the effectiveness of treatment efforts.

Marketing a Message

Mr. Siebel’s interest in curbing meth use grew out of his friendship with the sheriff of Cascade County, says Nitsa Zuppas, executive director of the Siebel foundation. The sheriff’s unsettling accounts of the methamphetamine problem in Montana struck a chord with the billionaire, she says.

“It seemed to Tom that all he was hearing was about busting meth labs and addicts and throwing people in jail,” says Ms. Zuppas. When he learned that Montana had no coordinated meth-prevention approach, Mr. Siebel took up the gauntlet, she says, and decided to focus his money on prevention efforts.

“We approached it as a consumer-product marketing problem,” says Ms. Zuppas. “We’re going to unsell kids on meth.”

When the first round of ads hit television, radio, and billboards in September 2005, the Montana Meth Project became the largest advertiser in Montana, reaching 90 percent of Montana teenagers three times a week, says Ms. Zuppas.

She says her organization has since received more than 250 requests to borrow aspects of the project, from using ads on a Web site to duplicating the entire project in Arizona, which is scheduled to begin soon. The state of Idaho is also eager to adopt the model, says Ms. Zuppas.

Debate Over Tactics

But approaches like the ones used by the Montana Meth Project have touched off debate about how best to combat abuse of the drug.

The Sentencing Project, a group in Washington that seeks to revise prison-sentencing laws and reduce overreliance on incarceration, issued a report last summer that challenged the notion of a national “meth epidemic,” taking the Montana Meth Project to task by name.

“We believe that the way that methamphetamine has been portrayed in the media…leads to bad policy,” says Ryan King, a policy analyst who wrote the report. “And one of the biggest problems is the message that the impact and consequences of methamphetamine are in some way irreversible, that treatment isn’t effective, and that once people start using methamphetamine their lives are forever, irreversibly damaged.”

He says that while he “applauds the principles behind” the Montana Meth Project, “there’s absolutely no empirical validation that it’s been successful, except for the people that sort of say, Well, we know it works.”

Ms. Zuppas of the Siebel foundation says that the tagline “Not Even Once” was suggested by former or current meth addicts from Montana who tell their stories in the project’s radio spots, and by others who participated in focus groups.

“They consistently said, ‘I just never should have tried it, I shouldn’t have messed with it,’” she says.

She does not consider the group’s advertisements “scare tactics.” The radio ads, in particular, says Ms. Zuppas, are true-to-life depictions of the degradation that meth can lead a young person into.

In March, the Montana Meth Project released its third annual survey, which found that 65 percent of teenagers in the state considered it risky to try meth, compared with 56 percent who considered heroin risky. What’s more, 83 percent of teenagers disagreed with the statement that “meth helps you escape your problems,” compared with 56 percent in 2005. The survey was conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media.

Yet Mr. King and other critics question the surveys’ methodology, as well as the millions of dollars being spent on the project, which is also poised to receive additional funds from the state of Montana. (Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s budget has allocated $1-million for the Montana Meth Project and Sen. Max Baucus has requested $4-million in federal support for the group.)

Meanwhile, says Mr. King, “we’ve got all these treatment programs that have been proven effective that can’t scrounge up money.”

Winnie Wechsler, executive director of Phoenix Houses of California, in Lake View Terrace, attests to this need. Her group, which runs drug-treatment programs for adolescents in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties, has seen new admissions for meth abuse surge from approximately 25 percent of cases in 2002 to 42 percent in 2005.

“There are very few dollars,” says Ms. Wechsler, “and that’s why it’s very hard to do this work, and why you don’t see many people doing it.”

Helping Struggling Teenagers

Meanwhile, New Mexico is embarking on what officials hope will be a new breed of comprehensive public-awareness program to deter high-school students from methamphetamine abuse. Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico, in Santa Fe, will take a lead in planning the statewide effort.

Like the Montana Meth Project, the new program to educate teenagers about the dangers of meth use will be designed by — and for — young people. Ms. Szczepanski envisions that it will not only purchase and get donated air time at prime hours to best reach high-school students, but will also use Web sites, inexpensive digital video recorders, and other electronic media to get feedback from students.

But she says that the New Mexico campaign will consist not only of prevention activities, but also efforts to ensure adequate treatment options, as well as alternative messages intended to reach young people who do use the drug. New Mexico also plans to hold a statewide conference for hundreds of students, teachers, school nurses, and others who will carry anti-meth messages back to their neighborhoods.

“We’ve done a disservice to our young people for decades, promulgating inaccurate information and fear-based messages that we know don’t work,” she says, “and it’s ruined our credibility in a sense to come back yet again with another project about yet another drug.”

At the same time, Ms. Szczepanski says, it’s crucial to have sufficient resources in schools and other places that serve young people who do end up with drug problems. “If we just turn our back on every student who gets in trouble with drugs or struggles, we’re neglecting a lot of students who may be relegated to getting a GED and settling for a job they don’t love.”