METH USERS FORCE MORE DENTAL SPENDING AT PRISONS, JAILS

CLEVELAND - The rotting, brittle teeth of methamphetamine users are
eating away at the budgets of Ohio's prisons and jails, as officials
are forced to spend more taxpayer dollars on dental work.

Dentists call the erosion of tooth enamel and blackening of gum lines
that come with using the drug "meth mouth."

The condition is mostly responsible for the doubling of dental costs
at Ohio's county jails in the past five years, said Robert Cornwell,
executive director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association. Since
2001, dental care spending at state prisons has jumped 20 percent to
nearly $3.8 million. Prisons officials blame most of the rise on
inflation and increases in dentists' salaries, but said meth mouth
will continue to hike costs. They estimate that as many as 10 new
inmates with meth mouth enter the prison system each week.

Dr. Denver Jenkins, a suburban Cleveland dentist who performs work on
inmates, said he had to pull eight teeth last fall from a 25-year-old
prisoner with meth mouth, who now has to get dentures.

"It's something I've grown accustomed to seeing," he said.

The chemicals mixed to make methamphetamine can include
over-the-counter cold medicine, fertilizer, battery acid and hydrogen
peroxide. Together, the substances decrease a user's saliva, which
usually acts to clear food from the teeth and neutralize acids.

Meth users also might neglect their dental health or drink high-sugar
beverages to alleviate dry mouth.

The prison system lowers costs by sending inmates to its own dental
lab, but county jails don't have the same resources.

"Someone has to pay for their new dentures," said Dr. Kenneth Jones,
a Mansfield dentist who has researched the problem, "and it's not
going to be them."