Methamphetamine: The Meth-Mouth Myth?
Thanks to a reader for passing along this from Slate, The Meth-Mouth Myth.
For the last year, a moral panic about methamphetamine and its users has been gathering force, and last week it peaked as Slate‘s corporate sibling, Newsweek magazine, joined the crusade with a cover story. Calling methamphetamine “America’s Most Dangerous Drug,” the magazine also portrayed its use as “epidemic.” In typical moral-panic fashion, Newsweek offered no data to anoint meth as the deadliest of drugs, nor did it prove its assertion that meth use is spreading like a prairie fire. Instead, the magazine relied almost exclusively on anecdotes from law enforcement officials, anti-drug politicians, and users (current and reformed) to stir up emotions against meth and meth-heads.
So, there is no problem with Methamphetamine and a cause for alarm is unwarranted?
This guy is a MORON.
Try some of these pieces:
Combat Methamphetamine Act: Clears Senate Judiciary Committee
Pharmaceutical Companies Reformulating Cold Medicines to Eliminate Pseudoephedrine
Santa Maria Times: meth·am·phet·a·mine: a drug that destroys bodies and lives
Methamphetamine: Meth Mouth ReDux
and how about the images which I see and treat on a weekly basis like
and……
Give the New York Times an honorable mention for an April 12, 2005, story that discusses meth mouth from a public health point of view, stating that the poor dental and oral health of rural, ethnic, and disabled Americans has not improved since a surgeon general called attention to it in 2000 report. Thanks to the American Academy of Periodontology for providing the Richards article on short notice. Thanks to reader Jon Paul Henry for the moral-panic angle. Send e-mail containing an angle of your own to slate.pressbox@gmail.com‘);. (E-mail may be quoted unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Jack Shafer‘); is Slate‘s editor at large.
The article which this moron quotes is grossly misread and I will include the abstract:
(doi:10.1902/jop.2000.71.8.1371)
Dr. John R. Richards
Division of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA.
B. Tomas Brofeldt
Division of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, CA.
Background: Methamphetamine (MAP) abuse is a significant worldwide problem. This prospective study was conducted to determine if MAP users had distinct patterns of tooth wear.
Methods: Methamphetamine users were identified and interviewed about their duration and preferred route of MAP use. Study participants were interviewed in the emergency department of a large urban university hospital serving a geographic area with a high rate of illicit MAP production and consumption. Tooth wear was documented for each study participant and scored using a previously validated index and demographic information was obtained using a questionnaire.
Results: Forty-three MAP patients were interviewed. Preferred route of administration was injection (37%) followed by snorting (33%). Patients who preferentially snorted MAP had significantly higher tooth wear in the anterior maxillary teeth than patients who injected, smoked, or ingested MAP (P = 0.005).
Conclusion: Patients who use MAP have distinct patterns of wear based on route of administration. This difference may be explained anatomically. J Periodontol 2000;71:1371-1374.
What exactly is your point?
Meth use is NOT a problem and that this type of dental destruction is due to poor brushing or dietary habits?
The Methamphetamine problem is exaggerated and can be rationalized away?
Flap welcomes your comments.
Arbitrary and Capricious has No myth.
There is a meth problem, and people’s health and families are suffering from it. But who are you going to believe: Slate, or your own lyin’ eyes?
As far as the “myth” of “meth mouth,” who should you trust? Pundits or dentists?
Bonus link: say it with me – Meth is Bad.
Skelly has this one sooooooo RIGHT!
Technorati Tags: methamphetamine, moron, Slate,Jack Shafer, Journal of Periodontology, dental, dentistry
3 Comments
Skelly
Thank you so much for providing a dentist's response to Jack Shafer. I've been grinding my teeth (figuratively) each time he's minimized the problems your patients and my clients face with meth. Dental science (and pictures) will trump willfully obtuse punditry, I hope.
Can you please walk us through how he misreads the Richards article? There's much more recent information to debunk Shafer at the American Dental Association website.
Flap
He misreads and spins the Richards article in total.
Richards was researching the differences in tooth wear with the different methods of MAP administration. And he found distinct paterns with each route of administration.
He did not say METH = Good or No EFFECT.
Sheesh.
NK
Posted this comment at CP, figured what the hell since you’re a dentist I’d repeat it.
I was a meth user for over 10 years. The size of my habit varied quite a bit over periods of months and years. I had some short stretches in there of total sobriety (a few months maybe, two or three times, I went to drug rehab twice and had to take UA’s etc). I had at least 2 consecutive years of non-stop use, every day more or less, and I also went through phases where I asserted enough self control to stay sober part-time, and then I’d go binge like a maniac eventually when the pressure built up too much.
A heavy user overall. Started out doing lines (nasally), then went to shooting it I.V. for a while but eventually decided it was too messy with all the blood and bruises on my arms and track marks, and then at that point smoking meth had actually become the norm for most people so that’s what I did too.
I haven’t lost any of my teeth to “meth mouth”, nor are my teeth a row of black and brown stubs. The whole “dental decay” aspect of the media coverage on meth is mostly hype and a sort of urban legend – it places an absurd emphasis on a relatively minor aspect of the damage meth can do to a person, because it evokes feelings of revulsion in the general populace … but it isn’t totally false. Meth does seem to beat a person’s mouth up pretty badly, and if they aren’t taking care of their teeth at all otherwise, the situation deteroriates quickly. My points…
1. Drug addicts suffer from poor health in general. Constant use of hard drugs can exact a heavy toll on a person’s body from head to toe, be it heroin or crack or cocaine or methamphetamine – or alcohol for that matter.
Meth users place a tremendous strain on their body. They are often awake for days at a time, engaged in sometimes frenzied activity. They are often eating very little (if they remember to at all) and so they are getting no real nutrition. As a stimulant, meth can raise the heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature to dangerous levels. Chronic sleep deprivation can massively weaken a person’s immune system, making them far more susceptible to illness and disease, and a minor cold can turn into pnuemonia on you, just like senior citizens. Having the health of a 75 year old (even temporarily) when you haven’t turned 30 yet is bad news.
I’m no expert on Oral Health, but I do know that sleep deprivation causes the inside of my mouth to break out in canker sores never seen otherwise, and the “Gum Disease Gingivitis” afflicts plenty of normal people, much less a junkie who is on his last legs.
2. Drug addicts often tend to ignore their personal hygiene and appearance, as they drift further and further away from social norms and responsibilities and their established social relationships begin to break down.
The addicts notions of self-worth and value begin to crumble along with their basic personal identity – they don’t know who they are anymore and their friends and family sure as hell don’t recognize them either. They become emotionally distant and isolated and consumed by their irrationale and selfish desires and anxieties. The addicts focus in life is the addiction – and between getting high and working out a plan to stay high and plotting ways to get even higher in the near future… why they barely have time to build up the extreme state of denial and the delusions required to keep on living day to day! So who has time for friends or family or laundry or showering or brushing your teeth?
Please, I encourage the media to go and take a look at the teeth of some crackheads, heroin junkies, and gutter drunks too. I’ve never met a crackhead with “good” teeth, unless their good teeth are the ones they appear to be missing, in which case I’m sure they’re just keeping them locked away in a safety deposit box for those special occasions when they really wish to smile or chew some food.
3. The idea that “contaminents” in meth are somehow to blame (instead of just the meth itself) is pretty laughable. I hate to break it to everyone out there, but the ingredients for meth that are so poisonous and toxic really aren’t all that exotic or out of the ordinary from a chemistry standpoint. Those grocery lists you read about – saying that meth is made from “gun cleaner, fertilizer, household chemicals, and cold medicine blah blah!” – that’s a distortion that serves the media and gov’t’s agenda to make meth sound really really scary – something your 12 year old and his friends might be trying to make up in their treehouse from stuff they pulled out from under the sink, and the average journalist or citizen doesn’t know anything about chemistry so this confusion persists. The manufacture of meth usually involves taking ephedrine or psuedo-ephedrine (active ingredient in most cold medicine) and through a series of chemical reactions you “reduce” it on a molecular level to methamphetamine. This is relatively easy because they have a very similar structure to each other, a difference of like one alpha-hydroxy group. It’s harder for most people to figure out than is popularly portrayed. It’s not “cooking” like throwing a frozen pizza in the oven, specialized knowledge is required. There is no room for imprecision … but it’s not too tough either, all things considered. Anyone who was properly motivated and had at least an average capacity for learning could accomplish it, but the legal risks, the hassle to obtain the precursors, and people’s basic laziness and disinclination towards intellectual activities dissuade them from trying.
There are a number of toxic or poisonous chemicals used in the manufacture of meth. There are also a number of toxic or poisonous chemicals used to synthesize all of the drugs your doctor prescribes you and in all kinds of common consumer products you live with every day and so on. You wouldn’t want to swallow any of it straight or breathe some laboratory fumes, but if the process is carried out correctly the final product won’t bear any appreciable resemblence to those deadly chemicals that were used to facilitate its creation. They’re removed or destroyed or transformed into something else etc. You wash your dishes with dish soap, and then rinse it off with water – you wouldn’t try to serve up dinner on them if they were still covered in blue goo. Imprecise analogy, best I can think of at the moment.
Now, most street drugs aren’t “pharm grade”, they typically have some impurities, still usually not a big deal. And when “cut” is added by dealers to increase their profits it is usually something totally harmless but cosmetically similar, if they don’t have their head in their ass anyways. The idea isn’t to poison your customers, just rip them off a little bit, and the last thing you want is them to *notice* the cut portion or get sick over it.
4. Methamphetamine *does* have a very high PH level, meaning it is very acidic. It tends to burn people’s nostrils painfully if they snort it, something that takes getting used to. If you smoke meth for a day or two straight, you’ll sometimes get “burns” inside your mouth – some kind of sores or irritation on the inside of your cheeks and tongue. If you’ve been tweaked out for a week and then remember to brush your teeth finally, your gums might feel unusually sore and painful with a noticeable eruption of blood coming out of them, like the elevator in The Shining opening up kind of blood flow.
Some meth users grind their teeth quite a bit and engage in many other obsessive/compulsive kinds of repetitive behavior as well. Don’t know if it’s a big factor here, but it sure can’t help.
I can’t say for certain if the acidity of meth can contribute to tooth decay or erode the enamel on them, but it doesn’t seem too unreasonable an assumption, Coca-Cola can surely rot your teeth and so maybe meth does even more.
I haven’t been to the dentist in many years, but I’ve always made a point of brushing my teeth regularly and using listerine, probably beause I noticed early on in my meth career that my mouth got pretty ripped up and abused by it. My teeth look normal and feel fine (never any toothaches or whatever).
In summation, my educated guess is that the answer is (D) ALL OF THE ABOVE – there are numerous factors going in to why meth users might have bad teeth, including the acidic PH and harsh nature of the chemical itself.