Vivid Anti-Drug Pitch Assistant U.S. Attorney Says Don’T Buy Dealers’ Rap, And Market Will Dry Up

Monte Stiles delivered a simple supply-and-demand lesson Thursday to area elementary students: Don’t buy drugs, and drug dealers will leave town.

The assistant U.S. attorney from Boise used a series of slides to illustrate the many negative effects of drugs to about three dozen fifth-graders at Borah Elementary school. Many of the stories Stiles told included tales of drug-provoked murders.

“Drugs make you forget the things that you love most,” Stiles said.

Stiles’ pitch to the Coeur d’Alene students is part of a traveling war on drugs fought by the U.S. attorney’s office. City officials invited Stiles to help publicize their “Enough Is Enough” drug-prevention program.

Stiles, a father of five, also visited Winton, Sorensen and Ramsey elementary schools Thursday. He is scheduled to speak to students at Woodland Middle School and Fernan Elementary school today.

“Monte is going to give us a little taste of our problems and what you kids can do,” said City Councilwoman Dixie Reid, who helped to bring Stiles to Coeur d’Alene.

While dozens of methamphetamine-fueled crimes have made headlines in recent months, Stiles said marijuana and, to a lesser extent, heroin abuse also has plagued the state.

A dangerous side effect to the drug epidemic has been the increase in the number of guns officers have seized during drug raids.

“Whenever you’ve got drugs, you’ve got guns,” Stiles said.

He mentioned a marijuana bust in Worley that netted federal drug investigators about a dozen semiautomatic guns. Agents found many of the guns hanging on nails next to doors and windows.

“These guns were not duck hunting guns,” Stiles said. “They were people-killing guns.”

Stiles has been a state and federal prosecutor for 16 years, specializing in drug cases. For the past 10 years, he has headed the federal Organized Crime/Drug Enforcement Task Force in Idaho.

He has become a nationally known expert in international drug trafficking and money laundering and prosecuted the largest marijuana growing operation in Idaho history. During that bust in Weiser in the summer of 1997, drug agents seized more than 100,000 pot plants worth $20 million.

Perhaps most disheartening for Stiles has been sifting through the aftermath of violent crime caused by the drug trade.

Stories he told the students included the explosion of a bomb in the hands of a police officer, an officer-involved shooting, and the brutal stabbing death of a young mother by a drug-crazed acquaintance.

That woman’s son, now 2 years old, was home when she was killed, but not harmed.

“He blows kisses to his mommy in heaven every night and cries because he doesn’t know where she is,” Stiles said.

Drug-related killings have made news in North Idaho recently. Four people, including three teenagers, have been convicted of murder in connection with two drug-related killings in Kootenai County during the past 14 months.

Additionally, state narcotics agents have raided dozens of methamphetamine labs around the Panhandle in recent months.

Methamphetamine “is the scariest drug I know about,” Stiles said. “It makes people crazy, violent and kill people.”

Stiles encouraged students to avoid drugs by picking their friends carefully.

“A real friend will never ever, ever, ever ask you to do something that will hurt you or get you in trouble.”