Pubdate: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 Source: News & Observer (NC) Copyright: 2005 The News and Observer Publishing Company Contact: http://www.news-observer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304 Author: Mandy Locke Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration) 'METH MOUTH' BITES INTO PRISONS' DENTAL BUDGETS Jon Baker, A Central Prison Inmate And Former Meth User, Has Lost Seven Teeth. RALEIGH -- Jon Baker is a 30-year-old man with a first-grader's smile. Mouth closed, Baker could turn heads, with his broad, football-player shoulders and a dirty-blond buzz cut. When he grins, as many gaps as teeth line his upper gum. Black crevices nibble at the white edges of some of the survivors. Baker, an inmate at Central Prison, suffers from "meth mouth," a strange dental condition found among methamphetamine addicts. The drug dries out saliva, teeth's best defense against rotting. Those that don't fall out must be yanked out. "It's a bombed-out mouth," said Dr. Norman Grantham, a Johnston County dentist who treats inmates at Central Prison's dental clinic. "You look inside, and all you see are stubs and spaces." Arrests of meth users are starting to have expensive repercussions for dental care in North Carolina's prisons and some local jails. State Department of Correction officials say it's only a matter of time before the cost of treating prisoners with meth mouth blows their $6.5 million annual dental budget. In Sampson County, the Sheriff's Department has already overshot its $15,000 dental budget treating about five meth mouths a month, said Capt. Kemely Pickett, jail administrator. In Western North Carolina's Watauga County, where Baker is from, Sheriff Mark Shook hasn't done the math. But he said in the last year he has hauled twice the usual number of prisoners to a dentist for treatment of meth mouth. So far, meth mouth has not drained the dental budgets at jails in the Triangle. Methamphetamine, a toxic stimulant made in home labs from items commonly found in medicine cabinets and garages, has ravaged some Western states over the last decade. Now it is on the rise in North Carolina, where law enforcement officers broke up 322 labs last year and expect to hit 500 to 700 this year. The Department of Correction is getting ready. Dr. James Clare, assistant dental chief for the department, plans a training session on meth mouth next month for its 120-member dental staff. This spring, correction officials also plan to start documenting signs of meth mouth among prisoners entering the system. Off meth but in pain Baker got involved with meth a decade ago and now is awaiting trial on charges of manufacturing the drug. Watauga County jailers shipped him to Central Prison in January so he could get medical care for his diabetes. His teeth began falling apart about three years ago, he said, when he switched from snorting meth to smoking it. But it never hurt until he went clean. Behind bars, Baker couldn't mask the pain by bingeing on the drug. Dental experts have done little research to explain the process of tooth decay in people who use meth. But dentists in the North Carolina prison system have their theories. Meth's base ingredient, cold medicine, dries out the mouth. So there's little saliva to protect teeth enamel from acidic substances and bacteria, Clare said. When users get high, they crave sugary, caffeinated sodas such as Mountain Dew, which hasten tooth decay. Of course, users forget to brush and floss when they binge. Then there are grinding and gnashing; users are often anxious and paranoid. That alone can destroy a healthy tooth, Clare said. Meth's other ingredients -- chemicals such as brake cleaner and lithium from batteries -- slow the flow of blood in the tooth, weakening the center. "It's almost like it's attacking the tooth from within," Grantham said. "By the time we see them, the tooth has pretty much collapsed." A year or two of meth use looks like a lifetime of bad hygiene, Clare said. Baker pushed his tongue against the gaps along his gum, ticking his fingers as he counted the spaces. Seven teeth were missing, most of which had fallen out in recent years when he bit into a sandwich or a slice of pizza. Grantham pulled two this month, including a front tooth. The dentist declared three others to be lost causes and will extract those soon. Prisoners are constitutionally entitled to dental care, Clare said. So Baker will get a denture or a partial appliance soon enough. Losing three in a row or four teeth in an arch entitles inmates to some sort of replacement. Inmates at the women's prison in Raleigh make the dentures for prisoners as part of course work for a dental technicians program. Back in Watauga County, Baker said, he could buy meth as easily as chewing gum. Now he wishes he had reached for the gum instead. "I'm not too happy about my appearance right now," he said. "A lot of women will look the other way when I get out, I'm sure." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom