Sudden impact

Meth effort by Flathead students gets attention from The New York Times

an edgy decision by a group of Flathead High School students caught the attention of The New York Times recently.

Students Together Against Alcohol, Nicotine and Drugs - or STAND, a group sponsored by Flathead CARE as they fight for youths to make good life choices - was just as shocked as the rest of the state by the no-holds-barred Montana Meth Project ads that splattered onto television screens last year.

But the students couldn't shake the stark ads from their memories.

Then, shortly after the ads began airing, the annual anti-drug Red Ribbon Week appeared on their late-October agenda.

As STAND students planned their traditional visits for positive role-modeling in area elementary schools, group members wanted something with impact to reach their fellow high-school students, too.

If the TV ads hit them that hard, they figured, the ads may get the attention of other Flathead High students watching the televised in-school morning announcements.

As it turned out, the attention stretched far beyond the Flathead campus.

"It's an amazing thing that The New York Times came to this community," Flathead CARE director Katharine Thompson said.

Times reporter Kate Zernike was sent to the state to cover the Montana Meth Project's campaign. She caught wind of the Flathead High initiative and scheduled a trip to Kalispell.

On Feb. 17, she sat down with a group of STAND members to pick their brains on why they showed the ads.

Never mind that the ads are stiff fare for early-morning viewing, they told her; students still watched.

"It's like a car wreck. You can't take your eyes off it," Dillon Foley, 18, told Zernike for her Times story published Feb. 26. "It's totally gross, totally graphic, you know it's going to be bad, but all you can do is watch it go down."

The Montana meth project and The New York Times story have a double connection to the Flathead Valley.

Software billionaire Thomas M. Siebel, a part-time Montana resident who has a reputation for being politically active, footed the bill for the long-term, broad-market Montana Meth Project ad campaign.

Not long ago, Siebel made a presentation to a group of public leaders at Grouse Mountain Lodge in Whitefish. While connecting with him there, Zernike looked for local effect from the ad campaign.

She got a lead from the director of the Montana Meth project, who related a request that had come in from the Flathead STAND students last fall.

During a retreat just before school started, STAND member Jared Flores suggested running the ads in school Oct. 24-28 during Red Ribbon Week.

"We had talked about (airing the ads)," said Joel Welle, STAND facilitator for Flathead CARE. "They said, 'Yeah, they're shocking, but are they going to be effective?' We decided they would, but knew there would be a mixed response."

With support from school administrators and Meth Project organizers, they posted the ads on televised in-school announcements each day that week.

Then Welle heard from Flathead assistant principal Mike Lincoln. Lincoln had received a call from The New York Times, asking about students responsible for bringing the meth ads to the school announcements.

Welle passed along the names of five students. Lincoln talked with the five and helped set up the interview with Zernike. The day she arrived, so many members showed up that they allowed 15 to sit in on the session.

The reporter quizzed students on the ads' realism.

"There was a strong sense that depictions in the ads were realistic," Welle said, "that they are consistent with what they know as the effects of meth, that they're not overdramatized.

"And there was strong agreement that these are appropriate for their age group, but not for younger kids," he said.

Their feedback became part of the story Zernike wove from a description of the graphic ads and how Siebel, in his desire "to shock the state away from a drug that has ravaged it," helped the Montana Meth Project become the biggest advertiser in the state.

She talked with Attorney General Mike McGrath and touched on meth's toll on schools, corrections, social services and health care. She quoted Gov. Brian Schweitzer in his insistence that if the ad campaign works, "it can be a template all over rural America."

And Zernike talked with Glacier Bank President Bob Nystuen in Kalispell, who told her, "You may not like the ads, but they're effective."

stand's in-school advertising initiative "shows how much they care about their fellow students," Thompson said.

Although the portion of youths in this community who admit to using meth is just 1.6 percent, according to 2004 data from the Montana Prevention Needs Assessment Survey, Welle and Thompson back use of the ads in the school.

"I'm excited to see a group of 15 kids come together for an hour to talk about this," Welle said. "And it's nice to have (a history of) support of Flathead High School."

Welle and Thompson are working for a strong mix of parents, community and peers to bring on a bigger slate of healthy activities for local teens.

"Research shows that when parents are real clear about rules and expectations," Thompson said about drug abuse prevention, "kids are less likely to get involved."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.