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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Siebel contrasts the Meth Project's apparent success with what he sees as the total failure of the Bush administration's War on Drugs. "I believe that the statements they made about what they achieved are outright fabrications. They are just bankrupt, they are fiction," Siebel says, landing his hand on the table with each point.

But skeptics say the Meth Project can't prove that it has been much more effective. While meth use has fallen in Montana, they say it's hard to credit the project. The state and federal governments have cracked down on meth labs and passed so-called precursor laws requiring retailers to put medicines containing pseudoephedrine, which is turned into meth, behind counters. "I haven't seen any evidence they've provided that convinces me that their program led to the specific decline," says Elizabeth Ginexi of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

More troubling, a 2008 paper by University of Western Australia graduate student David Erceg-Hurn in the journal Prevention Science reported that the Meth Project ignored negative data from its own studies. It criticized the project's research methods and failure to report data in categories that had produced what Erceg-Hurn calls "unflattering findings." Analyzing the Meth Project's own data, he found that teen views toward meth had barely changed. Before the ads, 84% of teens saw a "great" or "moderate" risk of dying from meth use; after, 84% of teens saw a "great" or "moderate" risk of dying from meth use. The percentage strongly disapproving of regular meth use actually declined from 98% before the ads to 91% in 2008. (The ads' meth-mouth focus was perhaps more effective: The percentage perceiving risk of tooth decay rocketed from 69% to 82%.) Erceg-Hurn recommended that Montana -- which now pays for the project, using a mix of state and federal funds -- halt public funding pending better data. (It has not.)

The fact is that it's nearly impossible to prove causality: Was the drop in meth use entirely or partly or not at all because of the ads? The Meth Project -- which Erceg-Hurn never contacted during his research -- says it had already asked Roper, its research firm, to strengthen its methodology. But Erceg-Hurn, who acknowledges that the Meth Project "has been associated with some positive outcomes," says that to prove the ads' efficacy, the Meth Project would need to use an "experimental research methodology." It's hard to imagine an experiment, though, that could control for all the other real-world elements that affect drug use. And Rawson says that before the Meth Project, "there was almost no public education program to inform and warn people about the dangers of meth." In other words, it is better than nothing.

Siebel is dismissive of criticism. He has seen Erceg-Hurn's report but offers no more specific a rebuttal than this: "The Meth Project is saving lives, pure and simple. It was an outrageous exercise in prevention. It has proven to date incredibly successful. More importantly, we've changed national policy."

Meth still vexes many states. Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, and Wyoming have already started Meth Projects. Colorado and Georgia plan to do so this year. Each state signs a contract with the national Meth Project, ceding creative control to Siebel's group, which provides new radio ads at cost and rebrands the TV ads. "We're in the franchising and licensing business -- think of McDonald's," Siebel says. "You can do with this anything you want, as long as you do it exactly as we did it in the state of Montana. We don't want to be associated with efforts that are not going to succeed."

Such is Siebel's system. He is not interested in half-measures. If the world is going to be changed, it's going to happen his way. "I don't do philanthropy because I'm a good guy," he says. "I've been very fortunate in my life, and I look at things, and either you're going to give all your money to the government when you die, or you can give it away before you die, okay?" Siebel plans to leave no money to his children. "That's the bottom line. So as long as I'm going to give it away, maybe there's an opportunity to do something good."