Meth Mouth: Tom Siebel's Brash Anti-Crystal Campaign

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Photograph Courtesy of Meth Project

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Photograph Courtesy of Meth Project

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The 2004 Siebel Scholars Conference was about something else that had been bothering him: the criminal-justice system. "The entire event rapidly degenerated into a discussion of the drug problem," Siebel recalls over dinner, after we'd returned from our failed attempt to spy on elk. (Only a few antelope showed up.) "Here we consider ourselves the land of the brave and home of the free, or whatever it is, and we have this great independent, free society, and yet we have the largest rate of incarceration of any society on earth. Most of this is about the War on Drugs. I mean, this is just crazy. You can't put everybody in jail."

Around the time of the criminal-justice conference, Siebel was hunting a lot with John Stevens, a Cascade County lieutenant sheriff. Whenever they got together, Stevens would describe the worsening meth problem. By 2005, meth accounted for half of all incarcerations in Montana. "I was getting called out every night to go to labs. In Cascade County, 95% of the crime you could link back to meth," Stevens says. Former attorney general McGrath adds: "Those of us in law enforcement had never seen anything like it. The kinds of crimes we saw were much more violent. We had domestic crimes and homicides before, but not with these incredibly violent aspects." As Siebel heard the tales of Montana's meth-induced spiral, "you could see the wheels spinning," Stevens says.

What resulted was a salesman's epiphany: Meth was an inferior product. "There's no glamorous side to it," Siebel says, as his chef takes our soup bowls and sets down slabs of prime rib. "I am not on a big antidrug mission, and I'm not on the religious right. With all of these other things -- cocaine, alcohol, marijuana -- there are some positive effects. You can relax. You can concentrate. I'd even argue there are some positive effects to cigarettes." An ex-smoker, Siebel quit just before he and his wife, Stacey, had the first of their four children. "Meth has no positive effects. It's such an easy product to work with.

"Let's say this is meth," he goes on, picking up a bowl of horseradish. "Now, you can have any of these other things, and they might be bad" -- he points his fork at a mound of butter and then at his half-empty bottle of wine. "But know that if you eat this horseradish once, it causes brain damage, it's the most addictive substance known to man, and you're going to feel paranoid. Your teeth are going to rot and fall out, and you're going to get screwed by about eight different people!"

The next day, Siebel takes me on a tour of the ranch and launches into a taxonomy of its other residents, which usually do not include his wife and kids, who live mostly at their home in Silicon Valley. There are 4,000 head of cattle, deer, moose, coyotes, wolves, bears, and thousands of birds, including a covey of Hungarian partridges that he introduced.

The walls of the house are mounted with portraits of Blackfeet Indian chiefs and the side tables stacked with books on Native American art. Upstairs, there's a mini replica of a 19th-century frontier saloon, its bar embedded with commemorative "peace" medals given by white settlers to Indians (before they were killed or moved onto reservations). Siebel repeatedly mentions the plight of Native Americans. I ask whether he contributes to Native American charities. "No," he says. "I think about it a lot." (He did establish a scholarship program for local students from the Crow tribe.)

In the library is a full-size bronze cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull. Siebel also thinks a great deal about extinction, he says. Perhaps not unrelated, he keeps, in meticulous glass cases in his office and a mudroom, a collection of handcrafted shotguns and hunting rifles. ("Ugo Beretta's a friend of mine," he explains.) Most have never been discharged.

Siebel undertook the Meth Project in 2005 -- nine years after buying Dearborn Ranch -- with the same punctilious instincts. He hired the research firm GfK Roper and the ad agency Venables, Bell & Partners to generate ideas. He met with Governor Brian Schweitzer, state legislators, and every other influential Montanan who would give him an ear. "At first I thought, Another rich guy moving into the state -- big deal," says the state's lone congressman, Denny Rehberg. "[But] he clearly had a conscience, where he's made a lot of money and wants to do something with it."