The New York Times has a grisly article (with one particularly-nasty picture) about "meth mouth": gnarled and ruined teeth resulting from the use of methamphetamine. Link. Excerpts:
[M]ethamphetamine seems to be taking a unique, and horrific, toll inside its users' mouths. In short stretches of time, sometimes just months, a perfectly healthy set of teeth can turn a grayish-brown, twist and begin to fall out, and take on a peculiar texture less like that of hard enamel and more like that of a piece of ripened fruit. . .
The drug itself, a synthetic stimulant that can be manufactured just about anywhere, causes dry mouth, Dr. Shaner said, and that in turn allows decay to start, since saliva is unavailable to help control bacteria in the mouth. The drug also tends to leave users thirsty and craving a constant supply of soda pop and other sugary drinks, which spur the decay; Mountain Dew, he said, has become the preferred drink of methamphetamine users. At the same time, the drug's highly addictive nature causes many users simply to stop doing what is needed to take care of themselves, including the brushing of teeth.
Other dentists said they suspected that the caustic ingredients of the drug - whether smoked, injected, snorted or eaten - contributed to the damage, which tends to start near the gums and wander to the edges of teeth. Among ingredients that can be used to make meth are red phosphorus found in the strips on boxes of matches and lithium from car batteries.
There are also dentists who point to methamphetamine users' tendency to grind and clench their teeth nervously, aggravating the frighteningly twisted and tangled look of meth mouth.
TDE readers might recall that meth is big among the homosexual bathhouse community. Between AIDS, drug use, and now bad teeth, those folks are going to look like vampires. We're under the impression that the underground Goth movement has a disproprortionate number of homosexuals, so maybe that's a good thing for them.
