Originally published August 7 2005
Crystal meth use causes dental decay
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A drug scourge that is sweeping through rural America is hitting users in the teeth. Literally. Rural dentists are seeing an increasing number of cases of "meth mouth," a disturbing dental decay.
A drug scourge that is sweeping through rural America is hitting users in the teeth.
Rural dentists are seeing an increasing number of cases of "meth mouth," a disturbing dental decay that rots teeth so quickly that some patients require full-mouth extractions.
"There's never been a drug that's had such an extreme dental impact as crystal meth," said Dr. Nancy Williams, a dental hygiene professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, who lectures around the country on drug abuse.
Little is know about what causes the condition, but the decay is striking.
Teeth become brittle and break as black cavities form along the gum lines.
"It looks like you told the person to stand up and took a sledgehammer to their mouth, the destruction is so complete," said Dr. Jeffrey Paskar, a Springfield, Missouri dentist who works in a clinic and at the county jail.
Methamphetamine resurfaced in rural parts of the US in the 1990's when a new recipe was developed that made the drug easy to manufacture out of readily available products like ammonia and cold medicine.
Home-brew instructions were passed from addict to addict and eventually found their way onto the internet.
It has now supplanted cocaine as the top drug-related law enforcement problem, according to a survey released July 5 of some 500 local officials.
Fifty-eight percent of police, sheriff's department and related agencies polled by the National Association of Counties said that methamphetamine was their top drug problem.
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