I'm a trendsetter!

According to this Slate article, I may have helped popularize the term "Meth Mouth."

Although users have been snorting, smoking, injecting, and swallowing methamphetamine in great quantities for more than 40 years, the phrase meth mouth is brand new. It makes its first Nexis appearance in Investor's Business Daily as an unsourced one-liner in a Jan. 31, 2003, digest of news: 'Methamphetamine's drying effect on saliva glands leads to tooth decay and gum disease, dentists say, a trend known as 'meth mouth.' '

More than two dozen different stories about meth mouth have appeared in Nexis since the IBD mention, but the majority of them fail to advance the story in any significant way. The better articles note, as IBD did correctly, that methamphetamine users suffer from dry mouth (xerostomia), which contributes to tooth decay and gum disease."

For the record, I didn't invent the term. The study I cited used it. But I did like enough to make sure it fit into the extremely limited space I had to write it.

And that's why my collegues now call me Ken "Meth Mouth" Brown. At least I hope that's the reason.