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Book club — Deep Sniff by Adam Zmith. Book club — Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery. CS gas. Meera Senthilingam This week, a brief history of crowd control, with Simon Cotton Simon Cotton The use of chemicals in crowd control goes back a long way.
Latest audio. Book club — Vampirology by Kathryn Harkup. In , the Hungarian delegation to the UN, backed by other Eastern European nations, put the matter on the international agenda.
Back in the United States, Vietnam War protesters faced tons of tear gas. Helicopters carrying tear gas showered thousands of peacefully assembled students, as well as bystanders, including nursery-school children and swimmers in the university pool.
Meanwhile, France was busy expanding its use of new tear-gas formulas to quell student and worker uprisings that broke out in The French became so accustomed to facing tear gas that they trained residents in Derry, Northern Ireland to repel its effects during fighting in August between the Royal Ulster Constabulary and Catholic residents that came to be known as the Battle of the Bogside. This event marked the U. In the s, human-rights groups increased their monitoring of the use of tear gas and riot-control techniques in zones of conflict or protest.
South Korea came under increasing international pressure for its use of the chemical weapon against student protesters, as did Israel for deploying tear gas against Palestinians during the First Intifada.
Rights groups recorded up to 40 deaths resulting from tear gas during the First Intifada, as well as thousands of cases of illness. Tear gas was once again transformed by the manufacture of handheld aerosol sprays beginning in the s, when chemical-agents expert and inventor Kamran Loghman worked with the FBI to develop a weapons-grade aerosol pepper spray—an alternative, faster-acting form of tear gas designed to be more debilitating to the target.
Soon after, similar sprays were developed in the U. It didn't take long before lawsuits arose, accusing police of harassment and, at times, torture.
Harking back to its large-scale use during Vietnam War protests, in the late s and early s, police forces deployed tear gas en masse against anti-globalization demonstrators in Seattle, Vancouver, Prague, and elsewhere.
Though the Chemical Weapons Convention again confirmed an international prohibition on the use of tear gases in warfare, it made an exception for their use in riot control by law-enforcement officials. During the Arab Spring, Occupy, and anti-austerity protests of , tear gas once more made headlines.
Ovrr the past two decades, sales of tear gas, and less-lethal weapons more broadly, have grown substantially. Jordt had been exposed to tear gas himself in the s, when he was a student in Germany and attended a protest against nuclear waste. Tear gases are not really gases; they are solids or liquids that get turned into aerosols.
There are a number of chemicals used that are called tear gas. Gases called CS and OC are used almost exclusively nowadays worldwide. OC is oleum capsicum chili pepper oil , the active ingredient in pepper spray containing capsaicin, the highly pungent natural product.
CS gas contains a chemical named 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile, a highly electrophilic agent activating pain receptors.
Other agents have been used in the past, including some that are illegal now due to toxicity. CN gas was used in Vietnam in the Vietcong tunnels. Tear gases are nerve gases that specifically activate pain-sensing nerves. Spelled out like that, people can better compare them to other nerve agents out there.
That's the major discovery we made, that they are not benign or just irritants. Tear gases were identified [and used] in World War I but without the knowledge of [how they work on] biology. In and we published papers identifying a receptor for pain that is activated by tear gas, which causes the body's response: closing of eyes, a rush of pain, bronchial spasms that make it difficult to breathe, etc. Since then we have received funding from the National Institutes of Health to identify countermeasures to these effects, for acute and long-term exposures.
We haven't published this yet, but what we see is these blockers reduce the pain responses in animals, and also the inflammatory swelling of the skin exposed to tear gas. When tear gas is deposited on the human body, it can cause burn-like injury and swelling, especially [in] parts of the body that are more moist, like eyes and armpits. These results have not made it into any clinical trials yet, but they are interesting for general pain medications, because these receptors are not just involved in tear gas response—they also respond to other painful stimuli and smoke irritations.
The receptors are designed to warn a human or animal about exposure to a noxious chemical, so the animal removes itself from the exposure. They increase survival. It's hard to say; in principle, yes. But taking it before an exposure could be very dangerous. Can you explain this disconnect? The idea is that if tear gas is used in war, it would be a part of an offensive [operation], whereas when the police use tear gas, it is defensive.
So is there a better way than tear gas? Does something exist that might do the same job, but also be more protective of the public? The solution for this is real democracy, is listening to people, is taking people seriously, treating people as humans. The solution to that is not better police equipment or more police. To that point, is there something about the use of tear gas in this moment in time that strikes you as particularly unique?
Or is this just a reprise of history? My last question is a practical one: If people are concerned about the use of tear gas, where should they start? How should people advocate, and is there a worthwhile policy change to pursue? I think the current move to defund police departments, and to force police departments to be much more transparent about where their budgets are going.
I think, first, that kind of data transparency and defunding that kind of aspect of policing. I think the movement that is happening right now is really important, that we need to stop talking about reform and start talking about defunding. And, you know, I think, in a very practical way, funding your street medics, making sure that street medics are equipped and are safe.
Then, as we saw with Kanders and the Whitney, I think corporate-based activism, more outing of these manufacturers, more outing of who they are and how they profit off these moments. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Protesters run from tear gas fired by police officers next to the Colorado State capitol in Denver, on May Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The disturbing history of how tear gas became the weapon of choice against protesters.
Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Park police officers are seen in a cloud of tear gas outside the White House on May Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below. Bullets and tear gas being used against striking workers of the Spang Chalfant Company in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, in Explainers The big questions about Covid booster shots. Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for The Weeds Get our essential policy newsletter delivered Fridays.
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