Speaker 1: Now tear gas canisters were plummeting everywhere behind the barricade
Speaker 1: through the trees. A huge cloud of gas rolled over
Speaker 1: the barricade, and cops with gas masks on came over
Speaker 1: the barricade in an assault wave with shotguns and rifles,
Speaker 1: using the butts as clubs on anyone in sight, knocking
Speaker 1: people down and standing on them. Gas gas was the cry,
Speaker 1: as if poisonous snakes had been loosed in the area.
Speaker 1: Thousands streamed across the park toward Clark Street, and panic
Speaker 1: started headlong, running the sudden threat of being trampled by
Speaker 1: your own people. The tear gas was catching up with us,
Speaker 1: a sharp menthol sort of burning on the cheeks and
Speaker 1: burning in the eyes, but though some people ran from it,
Speaker 1: most of us kept on walking. Now the tear gas
Speaker 1: began really burning, making the eyes twist tightly closed, and
Speaker 1: if you rubbed it, the burning got worse, as if
Speaker 1: your eyeballs were being rolled in fire. The medics were shouting,
Speaker 1: keep your eyes open, let it tear away. Water, Wash
Speaker 1: your eyes with water. The information on how to handle
Speaker 1: the tear your gas passed rapidly and with a warm feeling,
Speaker 1: from one person to another. The gas drifted over Old
Speaker 1: Town and the citizens came out of their houses, coughing
Speaker 1: and gritting their eyes angrily.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh. That was excerpted from a book that was
Speaker 2: published in nineteen sixty nine called No One Was Killed
Speaker 2: by John Schultz, and it's about the nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: protests and the in Chicago at the Democratic Convention, the
Speaker 2: National Democratic Convention, and in which police tear gas was
Speaker 2: used extensively by police along with other forms of violence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it.
Speaker 1: Feels like it could be from any old day these days.
Speaker 2: Erin, it does it does.
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Aaron Welsh and I'm Erin Alman Updike.
Speaker 2: And this is this podcast Will Kill You.
Speaker 1: And today we're talking about tear gas.
Speaker 2: We're talking about tear gas not just a timely topic,
Speaker 2: a timely topic for any part of well almost the
Speaker 2: entire twentieth century, twenty first century. Yeah, so we will
Speaker 2: learn to Yeah, as we'll learn. We really wanted to
Speaker 2: kind of get into what it is we know about
Speaker 2: tear gas and why men any countries allow its use
Speaker 2: on its own citizens despite the fact that it is
Speaker 2: banned in international warfare.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so kind of a big deal.
Speaker 2: Kind of big deal. There's a lot to a lot
Speaker 2: to care from. Yeah good, Yeah, well we'll get there.
Speaker 2: But first, but first it's time. What are we drinking
Speaker 2: this week?
Speaker 1: This week we're drinking the tear Jerker.
Speaker 2: We are drinking the tear Jerker. It's got elderflower syrup,
Speaker 2: lemon juice, club soda, sprig of rosemary. It's pretty good.
Speaker 1: It's a nice little bev for a not nice topic.
Speaker 2: Yep, there sums up most of our quarantines. I think
Speaker 2: that's so true. But you can find the quarantine on
Speaker 2: our website, this podcast wikill you dot com on all
Speaker 2: of our social media channels. Check us out if you're
Speaker 2: not following us, We've got some great content. If you're like, hey,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? I missed an episode? What's going on? What?
Speaker 2: What do you want?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: There?
Speaker 1: There?
Speaker 2: Do do that? What numer do you have?
Speaker 1: I don't know what touch we have, but we do
Speaker 1: have it on our website this podcast will kill you
Speaker 1: dot com along with Bloodmobile, who does the music for
Speaker 1: all of our episodes, a bookshop dot org affiliate account,
Speaker 1: a good Reads list which Aaron curates and is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: We've got transcripts from all of our episodes, we've got
Speaker 1: all of the sources first hand, account form, contact est form.
Speaker 2: I will say I no longer curate the Goodreads list
Speaker 2: because it stops the number of submissions that you're allowed
Speaker 2: to add to a list. And so like years ago,
Speaker 2: probably like three years at this point, I haven't been
Speaker 2: like three years old.
Speaker 1: So we need another good Reads list.
Speaker 2: We need a good Reads list, or we need somebody
Speaker 2: else to add to them. But if you want to
Speaker 2: see like the full list, anytime that I read a
Speaker 2: book or reference a book on the podcast in any
Speaker 2: episode or for a book club episodes or whatever. Bookshop
Speaker 2: dot org has a bunch of lists. It has the
Speaker 2: Kid's book Club TPWKY Kids book Club, So if you're
Speaker 2: not following us on social media, you're missing out on that.
Speaker 1: You don't even know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: There our book our TPWKY book Club books. There's and
Speaker 2: then there's like podcasts related books in general. So that
Speaker 2: includes nonfiction, memoirs, fiction even so, but anyway, you should
Speaker 2: check all that out. And I think that's it. Are
Speaker 2: we ready to get started?
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Tear gas is prohibited in war, yet
Speaker 2: many countries, including the United States permit tear gas to
Speaker 2: be used against their own citizens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like more countries than not.
Speaker 2: It was zinc surprisingly hard. I was googling, like tear
Speaker 2: gas band and it you can't. No, yeah, there's not
Speaker 2: like a curated list right all of the.
Speaker 1: No, it's used like extensively across the globe for crowd
Speaker 1: control purposes.
Speaker 2: And proponents of tear gas claim that it is a
Speaker 2: safe and more humane tool to control riots, while opponents
Speaker 2: of tear gas question its alleged harmlessness and point towards
Speaker 2: the many instances where tear gas is deployed as a
Speaker 2: weapon to quell legal and peaceful protests, not a tool
Speaker 2: of de escalation, used as a last resort, but a
Speaker 2: frontline weapon of political suppression, one that is not evenly
Speaker 2: utilized across the political spectrum. So there are statistics I
Speaker 2: found from the US Crisis Monitor that showed that in
Speaker 2: the early twenty twenties, can we say that yet? Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: from like twenty I don't remember the exact years, but
Speaker 2: in the early twenty twenties, police were three times more
Speaker 2: likely to use force in protests organized by left leaning
Speaker 2: groups such as Abolish Ice and Black lives matter three
Speaker 2: times more is more likely. And this is not just
Speaker 2: about tear gas. This is just the use of force
Speaker 2: in general, in general in general.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, huh uh.
Speaker 2: And also this uneven use, like we're going to call
Speaker 2: out the US a lot throughout this, but this uneven
Speaker 2: use is not restricted to the US alone. No, our
Speaker 2: mental image of protest today is incomplete without a police
Speaker 2: officer spraying a demonstrator in the face with pepper spray.
Speaker 2: That infamous image that they tried to get wiped from
Speaker 2: the internet, and it had the opposite effect to stressand
Speaker 2: effect as it happens, or you know, these these images
Speaker 2: of launching a canister of tear gas into a crowd
Speaker 2: of peacefully and legally assembled citizens, those thick, choking clouds
Speaker 2: are chilling reminders that quote unquote peaceful assembly is in
Speaker 2: the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Aran, was.
Speaker 2: This the intention of tear gas when it was invented?
Speaker 2: If not, what was the claimed intention and why has
Speaker 2: tear gas followed such a different trajectory than other agents
Speaker 2: of chemical warfare. That's the story that I want to
Speaker 2: tell today.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I can't wait.
Speaker 2: Tear gas is not, in fact a gas. I know
Speaker 2: you're going to get into this in more detail later
Speaker 2: on aaron, but and it's also not one thing at all.
Speaker 2: It is an umbrella term that encompasses chemical compounds that
Speaker 2: are lacrymatory agents, as in they produced tears, and historically
Speaker 2: they were also referred to as harassing agents. And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to go into the individual histories of each
Speaker 2: of the different compounds that make up this tear gas category,
Speaker 2: but rather I want to take us through the overall
Speaker 2: history of tear gas as one discrete unit and how
Speaker 2: it's idealized image of a safe, non toxic tool to
Speaker 2: protect citizens is rarely born out in reality.
Speaker 1: It's just the idea of it being non toxic entirely.
Speaker 2: Right to protect citizens is the other to protect kills me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The history, this history begins in World War One, when
Speaker 2: chemical weapons, including tear gas, chlorine, phosgene, mustard gas, and
Speaker 2: others were first developed and used extensively. While chemical warfare
Speaker 2: had been utilized as early as four hundred BCE in
Speaker 2: the Peloponnesian War between the Spartans and the Athenians.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, four hundred.
Speaker 2: People have been trying us for ages, just like we'll
Speaker 2: throw things or like what else can we do? Yeah,
Speaker 2: But it was really only in the early twentieth century
Speaker 2: that the scientific and technological advancements made during the Industrial
Speaker 2: Revolution could actually be applied to war. So it's like,
Speaker 2: let's use all this new scientific and technical knowledge to
Speaker 2: better kill.
Speaker 1: People or harmon better kill people. Yeah, to kill people
Speaker 1: more efficiently.
Speaker 2: To kill the more efficiently. And when chemical weapons were
Speaker 2: introduced in the First World War, the reaction was one
Speaker 2: of utter A military chaplain describes what he saw in
Speaker 2: April nineteen fifteen during the first use of chlorine by
Speaker 2: German troops in Epra, Belgium on French forces. Okay quote,
Speaker 2: a greenish gray cloud had swept down upon them, turning
Speaker 2: yellow as it traveled over the country, blasting everything it touched,
Speaker 2: shriveling up the vegetation. No human courage could face such apparel.
Speaker 2: Then they're staggered into our midst French soldiers blinded, coughing,
Speaker 2: chest heaving faces and ugly purple color lips, speechless with agony,
Speaker 2: and behind them in the gas choked trenches, we learned
Speaker 2: that they had left hundreds of dead and dying comrades.
Speaker 2: The impossible was only too true. It was the most fiendish,
Speaker 2: wicked thing I have ever seen. End quote. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's horrific. There are so many accounts. We really
Speaker 2: should do some of these other gases day as well.
Speaker 2: But like the accounts were like something out of a
Speaker 2: horror book. Like it was unsound, Like it was like unimaginable,
Speaker 2: I mean at first unless I think so many people
Speaker 2: until they saw it themselves or were part of it themselves,
Speaker 2: did not know the scale of I guess, just agony
Speaker 2: and terror.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to I think, even imagine or conceptualize
Speaker 1: when it's just that. I mean, it's it's everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like you control where a gas or a
Speaker 1: smoke or whatever goes when you when it's released. It's
Speaker 1: just everything in its path.
Speaker 2: I mean. And that's a big part of like tear
Speaker 2: gas today is that it's it's indiscriminately applied, and as
Speaker 2: affected by it is also indiscriminate. It's the wind changes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll get there now.
Speaker 2: The Ibrah gas attack with chlorine was the first to
Speaker 2: garner widespread attention due to its extreme lethality, and it
Speaker 2: prompted the development and distribution of protective equipment like gas masks.
Speaker 2: It would not be the last attack, nor would chlorine
Speaker 2: be the only chemical agent deployed. Mustard gas and fog
Speaker 2: gene also contributed to the ninety one thousand gas deaths
Speaker 2: in World War One. Wow, ninety ninety one thousand. It's
Speaker 2: a lot, and it's it's interesting, like there are so
Speaker 2: many of these chemical warfare books that were published either
Speaker 2: in the nineteen twenties or in during World War Two
Speaker 2: period that were still like, we chemical warfare is the
Speaker 2: best path forward. This statistic is positive for them. They're like, oh,
Speaker 2: it caused twenty five percent of all of the casualties,
Speaker 2: all of the injuries, all of the things that kept
Speaker 2: people from being able to be in battle. But it
Speaker 2: only caused this many deaths.
Speaker 1: And it's just like it incapacitated, itepacitated and long term effects.
Speaker 2: Forget about it. No one died, you know. It's like
Speaker 2: that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Oh God, okay.
Speaker 2: But before there was chlorine, foggene or mustard gas, there
Speaker 2: was tear gas before those. Before those. The first use
Speaker 2: of gas in battle in World War One was in
Speaker 2: August nineteen fourteen, when French troops fired tear gas grenades
Speaker 2: into German trenches. Huh yeah uh. And apparently the amount
Speaker 2: of chemicals was so low that no one noticed. But
Speaker 2: it set off an arms race where different countries sought
Speaker 2: to outcompete each other in devising more and more deadly
Speaker 2: gases and better protective equipment. It was just like all ripes.
Speaker 2: And that's yeah. Strictly speaking, the use of asphyxiating agents
Speaker 2: like chlorine was against the Hague Conventions that had been
Speaker 2: set in place in the late eighteen nineties. Tear gas
Speaker 2: was not banned under this agreement.
Speaker 1: Okay, only because it's like assiciating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, But these agreements were so vague as to
Speaker 2: be taken as suggestions at best. Like the loophole was
Speaker 2: absolutely enormous. It was just like, well, you could argue
Speaker 2: your way out of any of it, right. And when
Speaker 2: World War One concluded in November of nineteen eighteen, the
Speaker 2: perception of chemical warfare was divided along two very different lines.
Speaker 2: It was either the most humane form of weaponry ever
Speaker 2: created or the least. Yeah, I just I know. The
Speaker 2: argument is mental gymnastics at a.
Speaker 1: Humane weaponry period, Like, uh, sorry, and that's that's what
Speaker 1: really kills me about some of these arguments that people
Speaker 1: made then and still make today, and they're like, listen,
Speaker 1: if we're going.
Speaker 2: To have war, war is unavoidable, and you can't say
Speaker 2: that one weapon is right, right, So that's like, first
Speaker 2: of all, how many assumptions are you asking us to?
Speaker 1: So many? So we've already had to leap. Okay, the
Speaker 1: start down the line.
Speaker 2: It's all it's all inhumane. But yeah, anyway, so we've
Speaker 2: got these two different camps. Chemical warfare is humane. Chemical
Speaker 2: warfare is not humane. And those who experienced gas attacks firsthand,
Speaker 2: which was many veterans often more often fell into the
Speaker 2: latter camp that it's the least humane weaponry. It's horrible,
Speaker 2: with some expressing that they were more afraid of gas
Speaker 2: than of shell fire. The effective gas was not only physical,
Speaker 2: but it was hugely psychological. Caused widespread panic and chaos,
Speaker 2: which often left troops more vulnerable to artillery fire. And
Speaker 2: this was often again like a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 2: This is the intention, and this is later on it
Speaker 2: was like, oh, but it's not harmful, and it's like, no,
Speaker 2: but we you introduced tear gas to then.
Speaker 1: Kill, to do harm in order to do harm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, protective equipment didn't always live up to its promise either.
Speaker 2: The unwieldy, awkward masks made it more difficult to maneuver.
Speaker 2: And then you've got something like mustard gas, which will
Speaker 2: burn your skin through clothing. Yeah, it's awful, okay. Gas. Overall,
Speaker 2: gas weapons were designed to induce suffering, or at the
Speaker 2: least harm for those who believed it to be the
Speaker 2: most humane form of weaponry. These qualities were points in
Speaker 2: favor of chemical warfare, and among these proponents was US
Speaker 2: General Amos Freese, pro military, anti communist, xenophobic, racist, white supremacist,
Speaker 2: champion of the Chemical Warfare Service, and author of the
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one book Chemical Warfare, in which he played
Speaker 2: to Thoks about it. Oh yeah, it's a really dark read.
Speaker 2: It's a how to. It's like a oh, how you
Speaker 2: want to try? Yeah, it's a little bit of a
Speaker 2: persuasive argument. At the beginning, it's like, this is the
Speaker 2: best thing that's ever happened. And then yeah, let's go
Speaker 2: through them all, and how do you recognize them? I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure it's that one. I read another book on
Speaker 2: chemical warfare, or not all of it, but like I
Speaker 2: found another book on chemical warfare from nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2: One of them has a poem that's supposed to help
Speaker 2: you remember how to detect the different.
Speaker 1: The different types. Yeah, that's gross.
Speaker 2: It's really grim. It's really grim. But anyway, So in
Speaker 2: Amos Freeze chemical warfare, he says at one point, quote
Speaker 2: instead of gas warfare being the most horrible, it is
Speaker 2: the most humane where both sides are prepared for it.
Speaker 2: While against savage or unprepared peoples, it can be made
Speaker 2: so humane that but very few casualties will result. End.
Speaker 3: Quote there's a lot in that savage against Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: It's cool to use it in war. Everyone's got a
Speaker 1: gas mask, and it's cool to use it against.
Speaker 2: Against people not in war, even if they don't have
Speaker 2: a gas mask.
Speaker 1: Even if they don't have a gas mask. It's all good, right.
Speaker 2: The ends justify the means.
Speaker 1: Of course, they always do right, right.
Speaker 2: And so for Freeze and others in the pro gas camp,
Speaker 2: chemical weapons presented the future of war, and the anti
Speaker 2: gas sentiment that emerged after World War One threatened Freeze's
Speaker 2: relevance and his career. Nevertheless, many world leaders disagreed, and
Speaker 2: this was in alignment with the overall anti war sentiment
Speaker 2: that prevailed throughout many countries after the horrific loss of
Speaker 2: life from World War One. Discussions over the future use
Speaker 2: of chemical and biological warfare in this interwar period led
Speaker 2: eventually to the Geneva Protocol, which was signed in nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five, and it prohibited the use of both biological
Speaker 2: and chemical weapons in international armed conflicts. Ok The language
Speaker 2: here is kind of important, So I'm going to break
Speaker 2: apart these a little bit so we understand what's being
Speaker 2: prohibited and what's not. Okay, Okay. It prohibits, specifically, number one,
Speaker 2: the first use in war of quote, asphyxiating, poisonous or
Speaker 2: other gases and of all analogous liquids, materials, or devices
Speaker 2: end quote.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: And number two the first use of bacteriological methods of warfare.
Speaker 2: We're not going to pay attention to that in this episode.
Speaker 1: Still interesting bacteria, Okay, exactly.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things I was like, hmm, But
Speaker 2: what the Geneva Protocol, this this version of it, did
Speaker 2: not do was prohibit the research, development, testing, or stockpiling
Speaker 2: of such weapons chemical or biological, or the domestic use
Speaker 2: of tear gases or herbicides of course not, nor did
Speaker 2: it prohibit things like concealment, smoke or incendiary weapons like napalm.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Tear gas was a more contentious issue like did it
Speaker 2: fall under other gases or analogous liquids, materials or devices?
Speaker 1: That's it, I mean yes, it could be.
Speaker 2: Argued either way, right, like something, It just depends on
Speaker 2: do you want to do you like tear gas or
Speaker 2: do you not like your gas? So some said of
Speaker 2: course it does. Others were like no, that's it needs
Speaker 2: to be banned, right, or someone's like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't count. And so because there was such confusion
Speaker 2: over this and just making sure that the precision in
Speaker 2: language was there, in nineteen thirty a conference was convened
Speaker 2: in which all but one country that attended, which I
Speaker 2: think was like thirteen countries overall, all but one country
Speaker 2: agreed that tear gases were covered by the ban because
Speaker 2: it was difficult to draw a line between lethal and
Speaker 2: incapacitating gases. Okay, So going back to the language of
Speaker 2: that protocol, the protocol prohibits it forbade the first use
Speaker 2: of these gases, and so that means that retaliation is permitted.
Speaker 1: So if someone gases you, you can go ahead and
Speaker 1: gas them, yep. But they were the ones who did
Speaker 1: wrong in the first place. But two rungs make it right.
Speaker 2: So two rungs make it right. All's fair and war
Speaker 2: and war, yeah, and so and so like. They essentially
Speaker 2: that a lot of the countries who were like, no
Speaker 2: tear gases also need to be banned were imagining a
Speaker 2: scenario in which, let's say that a class out of
Speaker 2: choking gas is released over a group of soldiers. They
Speaker 2: are they don't know how to discern between tear despite
Speaker 2: the lovely little rhymes that are in credit and textbooks,
Speaker 2: but they don't know how to discern between tear gas
Speaker 2: versus chlorine versus you know, it's not something that maybe
Speaker 2: immediately you are able to you're able to tell it,
Speaker 2: or just one of the band gases or not one
Speaker 2: of the band gases, And so before you even find out,
Speaker 2: because you're allowed second year to retaliate, to retaliate, you
Speaker 2: could then retaliate with a more lethal, deadly gas like
Speaker 2: mustard gas chlorine, even if tear gas was the first
Speaker 2: use one of the allowed gases allowed gases.
Speaker 1: That makes sense where it's like if you don't know.
Speaker 1: Then it's just tit for tat, and you're going higher
Speaker 1: and higher each time.
Speaker 2: Right, Tear gas would easily escalate or start a conflict
Speaker 2: in that way, Okay, And so that is why its
Speaker 2: use is banned in war.
Speaker 1: That is why that is why it's use is banned
Speaker 1: in war. Okay. Well that's an answer, at least.
Speaker 2: It's an answer. But you know how I said, all
Speaker 2: but one country agreed to this. Guess who? Guess who objected?
Speaker 1: How what a hard guess?
Speaker 2: The United States? Yeah, Yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Country that likes to say no to all the things.
Speaker 2: Mom tell me what to do, what to do?
Speaker 1: I can use two your guys if I want to.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's basically how I imagine the US, especially Ams Freeze,
Speaker 2: who had campaigned very hard by this point, like by
Speaker 2: the by nineteen twenty five, he had campaigned so hard
Speaker 2: to make tear gas acceptable. And so the US is.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm just imagining the slogans reco today.
Speaker 2: Oh, there will be some slogans in here. But the
Speaker 2: US's response was was was that they were unwilling to
Speaker 2: bind themselves quote, to refrain from the use in war
Speaker 2: against any enemy of agencies which had been adopted for
Speaker 2: peacetime use against our own population agencies adopted on the
Speaker 2: ground that while causing temporary inconvenience, they cause no real
Speaker 2: suffering or permanent disability end quote.
Speaker 1: We're using it against the people.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're already are using it's it's not funny.
Speaker 2: None of this is not None of this is funny.
Speaker 2: It's just I don't even know. Yeah, the fact that
Speaker 2: like that, that's not the argument that you think it is.
Speaker 1: You're missing the point.
Speaker 2: You're missing the point, you're yeah, yeah, So, but I
Speaker 2: will say that, like, the discussion of whether domestic use
Speaker 2: of tear gas should or should not be banned was
Speaker 2: never on the table for this protocol, or or a
Speaker 2: protocol like this. Really, it wouldn't be, from my understanding,
Speaker 2: for a country to agree to external policing by another.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So, So to me, the question is not why didn't
Speaker 2: the Geneva Protocol also banned domestic use of tear gas,
Speaker 2: but instead, why did these countries permit the use of
Speaker 2: this chemical weapon against its own citizens in.
Speaker 1: The first place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you just heard, By nineteen twenty five, the
Speaker 2: US had already begun transforming tear gas from a war
Speaker 2: weapon to one that police could wield against citizens in peacetime.
Speaker 2: They were not alone in this. Many countries would have
Speaker 2: not only also refused to ban domestic use from if
Speaker 2: it had been on the table in these discussions, but
Speaker 2: these countries also many countries continue to use tear gas
Speaker 2: today against their citizens. As we said, it's harder to
Speaker 2: find countries that have banned it than those who have not.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah period.
Speaker 2: And in the US, leading the charge was General Freeze, who,
Speaker 2: within months of the war ending, embarked on a campaign
Speaker 2: to make over the reputation of tear gas, singling it
Speaker 2: out as a safe and humane policing tool.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Tear gas was one of the earliest recipients of the
Speaker 2: pr treatment, with public demonstrations, marketing campaigns, paid spokespeople like
Speaker 2: doctors saying like I attest to the safety of this
Speaker 2: tear gas.
Speaker 1: Why we can't have doctors promoting things okay, thank.
Speaker 2: You, yeah, and smear tactics against those who questioned its safety,
Speaker 2: who were like, uh, this is bad. I've experienced this firsthand,
Speaker 2: and I this is not acceptable to use. So there's
Speaker 2: a nineteen twenty one profile that was written about freeze,
Speaker 2: and it described how he was quote firmly convinced that
Speaker 2: as soon as officers of the law and colonial administrators
Speaker 2: have familiarized themselves with gas as a means of maintaining
Speaker 2: order and power, there will be such a diminution of
Speaker 2: violent social disorders and savage uprising as to amount to
Speaker 2: their disappearance. The tear gases appear to be admirably suited
Speaker 2: to the purpose of isolating the individual from the mob
Speaker 2: spirit grown into a condition in which he can think
Speaker 2: of nothing but relieving his own distress. An advantage of
Speaker 2: the milder form of gas weapons in dealing with a
Speaker 2: mob is that the responsible officer need not hesitate to
Speaker 2: use his weapons.
Speaker 1: End quote Oh my god, Aaron like, not only do
Speaker 1: they just make it so clear that we will use
Speaker 1: this to shut up anyone who is fighting against us,
Speaker 1: right any descent, who voices of any descent, we can
Speaker 1: shut it down. And also we can just use our
Speaker 1: weapons much more freely.
Speaker 2: That because I feel like so much of the time
Speaker 2: the proponents of tear gas, whether you know, since the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties and beyond, tear gas has always been framed
Speaker 2: and today is framed as a weapon of last resort,
Speaker 2: of like a not even a weapon, a tool of
Speaker 2: last resort, right, Like, it's not friendly when we are
Speaker 2: worried about bodily harm. It's only we're worried about the
Speaker 2: safety of our citizens and private property, natural property, property damage,
Speaker 2: private property. So it's only when these things are on
Speaker 2: the table is tear gas ever used, And that has
Speaker 2: never It's like it is literally that. This is what
Speaker 2: he was pushing for, is that you don't have to
Speaker 2: hesitate to use it. This is a frontline weapon to
Speaker 2: be used.
Speaker 1: Rist. This is the first thing you can do.
Speaker 2: This is the first thing. Don't worry about.
Speaker 1: Won't do damage, Yeah, lasting damage, that's an air just listening. Yeah.
Speaker 2: There was pushback against the military the use of military
Speaker 2: weapons against citizens, and many veterans strongly objected to the
Speaker 2: characterization of any gas as humane, but they were dismissed
Speaker 2: as liars or exaggerators. These were the people that Freeze
Speaker 2: was like, smear campaigns, smear campaigns. Oh they just want benefits.
Speaker 2: Oh they just do whatever. They don't know what they're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Freeze was strongly in favor of using military tactics to
Speaker 2: quell dissent domestic but it was more than that. There
Speaker 2: was a whole industry to consider, a purgeoning industry aaron.
Speaker 2: The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were witnessing a
Speaker 2: chemical revolution, not just in scientific knowledge but also industry.
Speaker 2: Many chemical companies stood a lot to gain by keeping
Speaker 2: gas on the table, and if they couldn't get approval
Speaker 2: to keep manufacturing all wartime gases, then maybe tear gas
Speaker 2: could still be a nice revenue streams. Where would that
Speaker 2: revenue come from, Well, we've got police departments, prisons, the
Speaker 2: National Guard, and private security. Ample opportunity there, And I
Speaker 2: mean it wasn't a hard sell at all. The incorporation
Speaker 2: of tear gas essentially began the militarization of police in
Speaker 2: this country. Ugh, tear gas. Yeah, tear gas was framed
Speaker 2: in a positive light as the best and safest alternative
Speaker 2: to lethal force, as though if tear gas were taken away,
Speaker 2: the only option would be to use lethal force against
Speaker 2: a crowd, not non violent, non lethal de escalation techniques,
Speaker 2: just lethal force. And so yeah, it's it's this false
Speaker 2: dichotomy between It reduces the options down to two tear
Speaker 2: gas or lethal.
Speaker 1: For lethal force.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: Those are our only two options in dealing with crowds
Speaker 1: or anyone saying anything that we don't want. We can
Speaker 1: either kill you or quote unquote not harm you that
Speaker 1: that incapacitate incapacitate we can those are our only two options.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's horrific.
Speaker 2: Tear gas lowered the threshold for deciding to use force.
Speaker 2: The development of tear gas technology reveals that the intention
Speaker 2: for harm was built into the devices themselves. Tear Gas
Speaker 2: shells were meant to be fired directly in someone's face
Speaker 2: to be quote unquote effective for best efficacy fire this
Speaker 2: into someone's face. They were desirable, written about as desirable
Speaker 2: for their ability to cause quote unquote walloping pain. Tests
Speaker 2: measuring the efficacy of tear gas were deployed specifically against
Speaker 2: unarmed individuals, again demonstrating that causing injury was not a
Speaker 2: bug but a feature. By the end of the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 2: tear gas had been heartily embraced by many policing forces
Speaker 2: in the United States, and it had begun to be
Speaker 2: used to suppress labor movements such as in the Panama
Speaker 2: Canal and political protests like when the Bonus Army lobbied
Speaker 2: outside the White House to demand their overdue wartime payments.
Speaker 2: The publicity surrounding the use of tear gas served, like
Speaker 2: in these specific instances, served as advertisements for many policing forces.
Speaker 2: It normalized its use and it demonstrated how effective it
Speaker 2: could be.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, look how great we did with tears. How great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: getting these veterans to get down.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The tagline of lake Erie Chemical Company, which was
Speaker 2: a there was their line of tear gas products. They
Speaker 2: were one of the biggest manufacturers of tear gas products
Speaker 2: was quote one man with chemical warfare gas can put
Speaker 2: to flight a thousand armed men and the ear resistible
Speaker 2: blast of blinding, choking pain, no permanent injury.
Speaker 1: End quote no permanent injury, No permanent injury.
Speaker 2: That promise did not reflect reality. Severe head injuries were
Speaker 2: not uncommon after protests or strikes were tear gassed. And
Speaker 2: this wasn't just about you know, long term effects in
Speaker 2: terms of it. I know you're going to talk about
Speaker 2: this being you know, effects on or damage to vision,
Speaker 2: damage to your lungs, GI tract burns, but also the
Speaker 2: canisters themselves can often cause tremendous harm. They still had
Speaker 2: head injuries. Yes, Yeah, And even though at the time,
Speaker 2: there were supposed to be restrictions on who could actually
Speaker 2: buy tear gas, those were often ignored, and a committee
Speaker 2: that was investigating the Chemical Warfare Service found that between
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three and nineteen thirty seven, over one point
Speaker 2: twenty five million dollars worth of old time money of
Speaker 2: tear gases was sold in anticipation of strikes. Wow, labor
Speaker 2: movements man dangerous things.
Speaker 1: Ooh so dangerous to demand equal pay.
Speaker 2: Days off, disrupting labor disputes and breaking up political protests
Speaker 2: they were just two demonstrated uses of tear gas. The
Speaker 2: weapon was also readily wielded by colonial administration, particularly in
Speaker 2: British colonies. It didn't start out that way. Following World
Speaker 2: War One, Britain was actually opposed to the use of
Speaker 2: tear gas, feeling that it was uncivilized and could not
Speaker 2: possibly be used against citizens when its use in war
Speaker 2: was prohibited. So logical, like what yeah, But after a
Speaker 2: few violent suppressions of colonial uprisings in which colonial authorities
Speaker 2: killed at least four hundred and possibly fifteen hundred unarmed
Speaker 2: people in India protesting new authoritarian legislation, and there was
Speaker 2: a lot of outcry, public outcry, shame, negative public opinion
Speaker 2: that followed this, and so they were like, you know what,
Speaker 2: maybe this blanket ban on chemical warfare it's a bit extreme.
Speaker 2: Maybe the use of tear gas could help us out
Speaker 2: in this way public image versus safer. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was not there to but again, it's the same
Speaker 1: thing that we already talked about. It's this fullosnachotomy. Oh well,
Speaker 1: we accidental killed too many people. We better find a
Speaker 1: way to get these people in line without killing them all.
Speaker 2: Killing them without changing the who's wielding the force the
Speaker 2: weapon right without yep, oh god, yeah. And so they
Speaker 2: began to adopt the use of tear gas in there
Speaker 2: in British colonies beginning in the nineteen thirties, and then
Speaker 2: later they were used in tear gas was used in
Speaker 2: Northern Ireland during the troubles. And while England or the
Speaker 2: UK did not play a big role in the manufacture
Speaker 2: of tear gas, unlike the US, they did do extensive
Speaker 2: research on deployment strategies. You know, how much to use,
Speaker 2: when to use, just like how best to gas people,
Speaker 2: how to guide here's a pamphlet. And the US found
Speaker 2: this extremely helpful throughout the nineteen sixties, particularly in the
Speaker 2: later half of the decade with the civil rights movement
Speaker 2: and anti war protests, tear gas was extensively deployed on
Speaker 2: so many peaceful demonstrations, disrupting sit ins, marches, assemblies at
Speaker 2: meeting halls. It was not used, as it was claimed
Speaker 2: to be, to put a stop to violence, but rather
Speaker 2: it introduced. It forced people to run wildly and flee
Speaker 2: in terror as they struggled to breathe. So I read
Speaker 2: a book for this called Tear Gas by Anna Fagenbaum,
Speaker 2: And there's a quote I'm going to read that describes
Speaker 2: the psychological impact of tear gas quote in escalating force
Speaker 2: and arousing derision from onlookers. Tear gas implicates protesters and
Speaker 2: often bystanders in a violent and chaotic scene. It turns
Speaker 2: civilians into criminals. End quote. Yeah, when people are bombarded
Speaker 2: by tear gas and they begin to run in panic,
Speaker 2: some police then might feel justified to beat them, taser them,
Speaker 2: shoot them in order to restore the piece that they
Speaker 2: themselves had destroyed. Right so wielded in this way, tear
Speaker 2: gas became the grounds for police violence, a punitive weapon
Speaker 2: to threaten what would happen if you dared to challenge
Speaker 2: the political authority, just like we see with abolish ice
Speaker 2: protests and Black Lives Matter marches today, if what you
Speaker 2: stood up for was not in line with what was
Speaker 2: deemed politically acceptable, your action, legal or peaceful though it
Speaker 2: may be, would be deemed illegitimate or violent through the
Speaker 2: use of tear gas. And in the nineteen sixties in
Speaker 2: the US, things kind of came to a head in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago,
Speaker 2: So this is where our first hand account comes from.
Speaker 2: Ten thousand people marched on the city for civil rights
Speaker 2: and to put an end to the war in Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Police deployed staggering amounts of tear gas, so much so
Speaker 2: that it warmed its way into buildings, covered entire city blocks.
Speaker 2: There was no escape, not from the tear gas and
Speaker 2: not from police bing and estimated four hundred people were
Speaker 2: treated for injuries from tear gas, but no one was killed.
Speaker 2: No one was killed, so this event was later described
Speaker 2: in an official report as a quote unquote police riot
Speaker 2: due to the excessive violence, and the entire event captured
Speaker 2: headlines across the country. It was on like so many
Speaker 2: news reports. It was like one of the biggest demonstrations
Speaker 2: of the excessive use of force and tear gas. The
Speaker 2: whole world is watching. The whole world is watching, and
Speaker 2: it didn't slow down the use of tear gas. In fact,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that much longer afterwards that Reagan, who was
Speaker 2: governor of California at the time, ordered a military helicopter
Speaker 2: to drop a bunch of tear gas on protesters at
Speaker 2: a park in Berkeley. So there you go. And it's
Speaker 2: just it is really interesting because the increased visibility did
Speaker 2: it what did it? Don't? I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, it's like the same thing today where
Speaker 1: we have cell phones and we can capture the fact
Speaker 1: that people are just sitting at a protest, they're dressed
Speaker 1: like frogs for goodness sake, for chickens, and there's tear
Speaker 1: gas being deployed for absolutely no reason and.
Speaker 2: It's reason reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly, Yeah, and yeah we can see it
Speaker 1: and it still is, it still is ongoing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is an interesting outcome, like the increased visibility
Speaker 2: should lead to increased accountability, but it almost just like
Speaker 2: normalizes its use in a way because if like you
Speaker 2: see it, no one does something about it. You see
Speaker 2: it again, no one does something about it again. You
Speaker 2: just expect that no one will ever do something about this.
Speaker 2: It's dangerous, yeah, and so tear gas. That is what
Speaker 2: happened to tear gas in the nineteen sixties. It emerged
Speaker 2: from this decade as a weapon that framed protesters as
Speaker 2: dangerous enemies, not as citizens exercising their rights, and because
Speaker 2: its use had become so normalized, alternatives like negotiation and
Speaker 2: nonviolent de escalation were rarely pursued. Resources instead went into
Speaker 2: producing more and more tear gas and better ways to
Speaker 2: efficiently deliver it.
Speaker 1: More tear gas weapons, more tear gas weapons.
Speaker 2: With all of these resources pouring into the optimization of
Speaker 2: tear gas, was there any leftover to look into its
Speaker 2: helf effects? There actually was a small amount, at least
Speaker 2: there was research carried out in the UK, but few,
Speaker 2: if any, just guess worse, Of the twenty thousand military
Speaker 2: volunteers who underwent testing at the Ministry of Defenses potting
Speaker 2: Down Research facility, few of these volunteers were told what
Speaker 2: substances they were being exposed to, which included tear gas
Speaker 2: but also the nerve agent serin, mustard gas and smoke bombs.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, just without knowing what it is that you're
Speaker 1: being exposed to cool cool, cool, and you have a
Speaker 1: lot of control over that, I'm sure, being in the military.
Speaker 2: YEP. By the nineteen seventies, with the news reports of
Speaker 2: tear gas being used against protesters, a renewed call for
Speaker 2: its ban was made by many countries, and so there
Speaker 2: was some like anger. This did incite some like hey,
Speaker 2: wait a second, let's reconsider this. Yeah, but the US
Speaker 2: and the UK resisted, and in February nineteen seventy British
Speaker 2: Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart announced that quote CS smoke is
Speaker 2: considered to be not significantly harmful to man in other
Speaker 2: than a wholly exceptional circumstances, and we regard CS and
Speaker 2: other such gases accordingly as being outside the scope of
Speaker 2: the Geneva Protocol. Right, so it's just like this is
Speaker 2: our We decided, this is the truth.
Speaker 1: We decided that it's fine.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 1: So it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 2: It was not received well that that conclusion, that declaration
Speaker 2: quite good, But then came the argument that not only
Speaker 2: was tear gas not harmful, it was actually life saving,
Speaker 2: because who knows how many people would have been killed
Speaker 2: in protests by police if not for tear gas.
Speaker 1: Aaron, that's the same thing all over again, the same thing.
Speaker 2: The argument is still in use today, and it implies
Speaker 2: that we should accept police violence as inevitable, and so
Speaker 2: it's on us to choose the lesser of two evils.
Speaker 2: Here you go, here are your two options. Oh, you're
Speaker 2: gonna choose gun violence. No, we don't choose.
Speaker 1: No, it's ridiculous. That's a ridiculous argument to make. I
Speaker 1: know so much is ridiculous in this world, likes utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Those are your only two choices? A gun in your
Speaker 1: face or a tear gun? Right?
Speaker 2: And it's also like, this is why I was I
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out when I was looking up
Speaker 2: like countries that had banned tear gas, I was trying
Speaker 2: to be like, is there any data even to support
Speaker 2: this argument? Yeah? And I know there's a lot of
Speaker 2: other factors in terms of is there an authoritarian government,
Speaker 2: how much of this would be silenced just in general,
Speaker 2: any sort of state sponsored violence. But I don't, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I just it's a it's a shockingly horrible argument.
Speaker 1: It really is. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But going back to the medical research on tear gas,
Speaker 2: what did they find. Many of the early reports, such
Speaker 2: as the Hymnsworth Report, which is still referenced today, were
Speaker 2: carried out in an official governmental capacity, and they were
Speaker 2: largely unreliable. So, for instance, people with epilepsy who had
Speaker 2: a seizure after exposure to tear gas, it was concluded
Speaker 2: often that like, well, we don't really know that it
Speaker 2: was tear gas. It's probably that they just forgot to
Speaker 2: take their meds. We can't tell.
Speaker 1: We can't tell, you can't you can't do that study, really, right,
Speaker 1: So cool cool, cool, Yeah, sort of, that's just a
Speaker 1: little sample of that.
Speaker 2: There were also there were reports like people were instructed
Speaker 2: to follow up on reports where people had died after
Speaker 2: tear gas exposure and they found it impossible to find
Speaker 2: any more information. The police were like, Nope, nothing to
Speaker 2: see here, move on, there's nothing. Just don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: Just we swept it under the rug, under the right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The incentives for downplaying the medical effects of tear gas
Speaker 2: were just too great as a political and policing weapon.
Speaker 2: It discouraged political protests or labor strikes, and it painted
Speaker 2: peaceful protesters as violent dissidents. And as a product, it
Speaker 2: was very lucrative. The United States exports both the substance
Speaker 2: itself as well as the weapons to deploy it. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, in nineteen eighty nine, the US exported six
Speaker 2: and a half million dollars worth of tear gas and
Speaker 2: tear gas weapons to Israel, where it was thrown into
Speaker 2: Palestinian homes and hospitals and schools and mosques. But the
Speaker 2: US is far from the only country to profit from
Speaker 2: this weapon. I came across a new phrase in my
Speaker 2: research for this, the riot control industrial complex.
Speaker 1: Gosh very grim, very grim, grim and specific.
Speaker 2: It is an incredibly profitable international venture of which tear
Speaker 2: gas is a substantial part. Tear gas is manufactured in
Speaker 2: most countries in Europe. It's manufactured in Canada, Turkey, India, Pakistan, China,
Speaker 2: and South Korea. That's not all, There's many more. I
Speaker 2: looked up the current projections for the tear gas market,
Speaker 2: which was projected to be in twenty twenty six one
Speaker 2: point four five billion dollars, and guess what erin It's
Speaker 2: predicted to experience robust growth because of increasing civil unrest.
Speaker 1: Are you serious? Yeah, that we have statistics like that,
Speaker 1: and I bet the economists are like, woho, right, this
Speaker 1: sector is growing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. That's I know, dystopian isually it's the
Speaker 2: bottom line. That's what I have written, truly dystopian.
Speaker 1: That really is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, projected to increase because of growing civil unrest.
Speaker 1: What a great sector to be in.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, Okay, We're almost done.
Speaker 1: I'm almost done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know, I mean. And this is
Speaker 2: that's the thing is that, like the history of tear
Speaker 2: gas is still being written today every single day. It
Speaker 2: is an indelible mark of protests around the world, where
Speaker 2: it is increasingly used against people exercising their legal right
Speaker 2: to assembly. What I have presented here is far from
Speaker 2: a comprehensive history of its use, which is largely as
Speaker 2: a weapon of political oppression and state endorsed violence. But
Speaker 2: there are glimmers of hope in this history as well.
Speaker 2: Scientists who fight for objective research on the harms of
Speaker 2: tear gas, street medics that attend protests and have extensive
Speaker 2: firsthand knowledge of these chemicals and how to treat them immediately,
Speaker 2: people who design better masks or treatments, to protect from
Speaker 2: tear gas exposure and then make that information freely available
Speaker 2: groups that disseminate this information and pave the way for
Speaker 2: collective resistance artists turning tear gas canisters into exhibits. Cities
Speaker 2: like Berkeley banning the use of tear gas, which happened
Speaker 2: in June twenty twenty, although they've considered rolling it back. Today,
Speaker 2: with the advent of social media and basically everyone carrying
Speaker 2: a camera with them at all times, the use of
Speaker 2: tear gas is more publicized. Just like we talked about,
Speaker 2: these images are shared and shared again around the world
Speaker 2: and can act as powerful icons of unity or resistance,
Speaker 2: and hopefully they will be used to increase accountability and
Speaker 2: change things for the better. The jury is out on
Speaker 2: that one. That maybe makes me a little cynical, but
Speaker 2: I'm just like, who's ever going to be held accountable
Speaker 2: for anything ever? Right now?
Speaker 1: That's a valid question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But at the very least, what these images
Speaker 2: do is they serve to question the status quo, the
Speaker 2: normalization of tear gas, even at a legal, peaceful protest,
Speaker 2: and questioning is what we should be doing. We should
Speaker 2: be asking why the threshold for tear gas deployment is
Speaker 2: so low, who is making money off of tear gas production?
Speaker 2: And what harm it can cause? Most of all, though,
Speaker 2: we should be questioning the reasons that we have been
Speaker 2: given for why tear gas is legal in this country
Speaker 2: to use against its citizens when it is outlawed in
Speaker 2: international warfare. And so now, Aaron, I'll turn it over
Speaker 2: to you to tell me what we know about the
Speaker 2: health effects of tear gas.
Speaker 1: Oh, let me tell you. It's a lot to cover
Speaker 1: here erin.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, there's.
Speaker 1: Tear gas, like you mentioned, Aaron, it's one of several.
Speaker 1: It's not one thing. It is one of several riot
Speaker 1: control agents. They're called or sometimes they're called harassing agents.
Speaker 1: There's lots of other names for them as well. And
Speaker 1: there's several different types of chemicals that make up this
Speaker 1: umbrella term tear gas. I'm going to mention three of
Speaker 1: them by name, but then I am going to just
Speaker 1: kind of lump them all together because we can. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the three that are most common. One is called
Speaker 1: cn or one chloro acida finone. It's also known as MACE.
Speaker 1: That's brand name. It used to be probably the most
Speaker 1: commonly used tear gas. But it's been largely replaced by
Speaker 1: a newer one called CS or o chloro benz lighten
Speaker 1: mallow nitrial molono nit trial.
Speaker 2: Very impressed that you were able to get through that.
Speaker 1: I came close. I go messed it up a little.
Speaker 1: So the reason that CN was replaced mostly by CS
Speaker 1: is because CS is far more potent, meaning at much
Speaker 1: lower concentrations. It has an effect.
Speaker 2: We love an efficient weapon, don't we.
Speaker 1: Don't we? Although supposedly CN was more toxic, which means
Speaker 1: that someone out there admitted that CN can be toxic.
Speaker 2: So I wonder if it was like the competition between
Speaker 2: different tear gas companies, and they're like company, really, that's
Speaker 2: the only time is when you just to make more
Speaker 2: money off.
Speaker 1: To make another version. In any case, mostly CN has
Speaker 1: been kind of replaced by CS, and those are what
Speaker 1: is most most often used when people say tear gas.
Speaker 1: But then there's also pepper spray, which I am going
Speaker 1: to lump under tear gases as well, and that is
Speaker 1: the fancy name is ola resin, cap saysum or oc
Speaker 1: now pepper spray. The main ingredient in pepper spray is
Speaker 1: cap saysin, which comes from pepper plants. Is actually extracted
Speaker 1: from pepper plants, same stuff that burns your tongue. But
Speaker 1: the Skullville units on cap saysin like pepper sprays are
Speaker 1: like up to two million. And it's not just cap sayson.
Speaker 1: There's like tons of active compounds that are in a
Speaker 1: pepper plant that make up this pepper right, And because
Speaker 1: like we've learned in all of our indefensive plants crossover episodes,
Speaker 1: not all plants are the same. There can be really
Speaker 1: varying concentrations of all of the different active ingredients that
Speaker 1: are in pepper spray essentially.
Speaker 2: So, okay, so these are not artificially manufactured. These are
Speaker 2: extra they're not synthetic. Yeah, they're not synthetic derivatives.
Speaker 1: Yeah we do. There is a synthetic derivative version of it.
Speaker 1: But these are extracted from pepper plants. They know.
Speaker 2: So now you know.
Speaker 1: But I am going to lump all of these, including
Speaker 1: pepper spray, under this tear gas umbrella. I'll probably just
Speaker 1: mostly call it tear gas or maybe riot control agents
Speaker 1: going forward, because they do share more similarities than differences,
Speaker 1: at least when it comes to understanding what they're doing
Speaker 1: and how they cause the symptoms that they cause.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the first thing to know.
Speaker 1: And you said this already, aarin tear gas is not
Speaker 1: a gas. Generally, these things are solids, and they're solid chemicals,
Speaker 1: and they're put into dispersal systems, either dissolved in a
Speaker 1: solvent so that you end up with a liquid formulation
Speaker 1: that you can spray from a pressurized dispenser of some kind,
Speaker 1: like your personal pepper sprays or like pepper guns that
Speaker 1: are you know, spraying pepper spray liquids, or it's a
Speaker 1: powder that's put into a delivery system that includes some
Speaker 1: kind of pyrotechnic that means something like what's in a
Speaker 1: gun or a grenade, something that can cause this powder
Speaker 1: to be released as a smoke or a fog.
Speaker 2: You've got the tear gas substance itself, and then you've
Speaker 2: got all these other things that are going into the
Speaker 2: air and your lungs and your eyes, and your GI
Speaker 2: tract and your respiratory tract, and you sure.
Speaker 1: Do aarin and very often all of these other solvents
Speaker 1: and chemicals that are used as part of this mixture
Speaker 1: are also hazardous to our health. Not to mention how
Speaker 1: dangerous the projectiles are if you get hit with them,
Speaker 1: and that happens all the time, all the right people
Speaker 1: lose their eyes because they got hit in the face
Speaker 1: with one of these pepper balls or gas canisters or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And no one talks about the effect
Speaker 1: of all of those other chemicals when they're talking about
Speaker 1: the toxicities of tear gas. So just throwing that out
Speaker 1: there or off to a horrible start, we are in general,
Speaker 1: all of these chemicals produce a similar suite of symptoms.
Speaker 1: They all work really instantaneously, so either right away or
Speaker 1: within a matter of seconds. They're causing irritation of the eyes, nose, mouth, skin,
Speaker 1: and respiratory tract. And what this leads to is pain, itching, burning,
Speaker 1: and of course lachrymation. That's tear formation, and the amount
Speaker 1: of tears and crying can be so severe that it
Speaker 1: can result in temporary blindness because of how much tears
Speaker 1: you're producing, and when we inhale it, this also irritates
Speaker 1: our respiratory tract, which leads to coughing sometimes the sensation
Speaker 1: that you're choking, like you cannot get air in even
Speaker 1: though like if you checked an oxygen saturation, people might
Speaker 1: be technically saturating. Well, they're getting air, but it feels
Speaker 1: like you are choking. Yeah, right, And if the exposure
Speaker 1: is large enough, it can also get into your GI
Speaker 1: tract and then end up causing nausea, vomiting, even diarrhea.
Speaker 1: Direct contact with the skin can result in like rashes
Speaker 1: and burns, which can range from pretty mild to like
Speaker 1: significant burns with like blistering like what we would consider
Speaker 1: like second degree. We don't really degrees anymore. Thickness is
Speaker 1: we'll get there, okay to this season will Yeah, And
Speaker 1: a lot of the literature says that most of these
Speaker 1: symptoms will last anywhere from like twenty thirty minutes to
Speaker 1: an hour or so, But it so depends on the
Speaker 1: duration and the dose of exposure, so it's not uncommon
Speaker 1: that people have much more prolonged symptoms. So we can
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that in a bit,
Speaker 1: But I want to tell you about how these things
Speaker 1: are actually causing the symptoms that they're causing. Yeah, Because
Speaker 1: even though there's a lot of different chemicals then I
Speaker 1: didn't even list them all that we could consider under
Speaker 1: this tear gas umbrella, they all share a common mechanism
Speaker 1: even if the specific things they're binding to are a
Speaker 1: little different, right, and that is that they all activate
Speaker 1: what are called our no susceptors, and these are our
Speaker 1: pain sensory nerves. So they are literally binding to and
Speaker 1: activating nerve endings in our body that are responsible for
Speaker 1: sensing pain. And if we want to get more specific,
Speaker 1: which you know I do, pepper spray activates the same
Speaker 1: pain sensors that are activated by eat, like touching a
Speaker 1: hot pain or getting burned by your toaster oven. And
Speaker 1: that's why when you eat a hot pepper it feels
Speaker 1: like your tongue is burning. Right. Yeah, CS and CN
Speaker 1: among some of the other tear gases activate pain sensors
Speaker 1: that are also activated by cold burns, like think liquid
Speaker 1: nitrogen burn on your skin.
Speaker 2: This is diabolical. I know the fact that like, let's
Speaker 2: engineer this compound to directly target pain receptors so that
Speaker 2: the sensation that you feel is overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Pain, pain, burning pain, right, and I mean a cold
Speaker 1: burn versus a hot burn. You can't really distinguish those, right,
Speaker 1: And we have these pain receptors everywhere our skin, our eyes,
Speaker 1: our mucous membranes. Pain is a signal to our brain
Speaker 1: that something bad is happening. Something harmful is happening, and
Speaker 1: that is why activating these receptors activates these reflex loops
Speaker 1: that cause things like tearing, fluid production. We're trying to
Speaker 1: our bodies are trying to clear away, wash away this
Speaker 1: noxious stimulus.
Speaker 2: Do whatever it takes to stop this feeling.
Speaker 1: Right, and we see the release of a really wide
Speaker 1: variety of neurotransmitters and other inflammatory markers that are promoting inflammation,
Speaker 1: exacerbating pain because we know that inflammation can also exacerbate pain.
Speaker 1: We see increases in things like vascular permeability, smooth muscle contraction.
Speaker 1: We see fluid production which is going to then cause
Speaker 1: that coughing and difficulty breathing. Some of the things that
Speaker 1: are released as part of this reflex arc are actually
Speaker 1: directly involved, we think, in the pathogenesis of asthma, which
Speaker 1: is why we can see exacerbations of asthma and other
Speaker 1: respiratory conditions. WHOA. So that's that is how these things
Speaker 1: are working. And while one of the hallmarks of all
Speaker 1: of these tear gas agents is supposed to be that
Speaker 1: they have a so called wide safety margin between what
Speaker 1: is considered an incapacitating dose that's what it's called the
Speaker 1: irritant dose or the incapacitating dose, and what would be
Speaker 1: considered a lethal dose.
Speaker 2: How do they determine these different the ends of the
Speaker 2: spectrum here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question. So the irritant doses were
Speaker 1: determined either by animal models and in some cases human studies,
Speaker 1: so to see like at what dosage do people detect
Speaker 1: this and can they not stand it? Have to leave
Speaker 1: the room, that sort of a thing. And then the
Speaker 1: lethal dose that LC fifties are all based on animal
Speaker 1: studies and then you extrapolate to humans. But that does
Speaker 1: not mean that there can't be more severe effects, and
Speaker 1: the idea that these are completely benign not quote unquote harmful,
Speaker 1: is factually incorrect. In our eyes, these agents can cause
Speaker 1: significant swelling what's called corneal edema that most of the
Speaker 1: time gets better with time, but in some cases can
Speaker 1: be much more severe, lead to ulceration and scarring and
Speaker 1: eventually essentially cataract formation and blindness. And especially in people
Speaker 1: who wear contacts, that's an especially big risk because the
Speaker 1: contacts can trap these chemicals on your eyes for longer,
Speaker 1: which can then just lead to prolonged exposure and more
Speaker 1: damage to the eye. On the skin, I already said,
Speaker 1: we can sometimes have really severe burns, like blistering and
Speaker 1: really severe rashes. It's also thought that there's like a
Speaker 1: sensitization like allergy type component, so if you're exposed once,
Speaker 1: you might have an even worse reaction on any subsequent encounters.
Speaker 2: Okay, And that is for like any of the symptoms,
Speaker 2: whether it's respiratory, skin, anything.
Speaker 1: That's more specific for skin. But in theory, yes, could
Speaker 1: happen to any but we see it. It's more visible
Speaker 1: on the skin, I think with the severity of rashes. Okay,
Speaker 1: But the most common severe reactions to tear gas is
Speaker 1: in the respiratory system because if you think of it,
Speaker 1: what tear gas is doing, like if you think what
Speaker 1: it's doing to your eyes right where it's causing this
Speaker 1: intense degree of tear and fluid formation. If it does
Speaker 1: that in our lungs, it's causing this intense inflammatory response
Speaker 1: a lot of fluid production, and fluid in our lungs
Speaker 1: is incredibly dangerous. There's nowhere for it to go. So
Speaker 1: this can cause something called pulmonary edema, and that can
Speaker 1: and has been fatal in cases.
Speaker 2: But it's harmless, it's humane.
Speaker 1: It's harmless, it's humane. It's also been shown that it
Speaker 1: can put people at risk for secondary infection. Some people
Speaker 1: who have asthma or COPD or other respiratory diseases. We
Speaker 1: see that can trigger exacerbations of those diseases. And there's
Speaker 1: other like that that is not all of it. There
Speaker 1: have been some case reports of miscarriage associated with tear
Speaker 1: gas exposure, and there is other literature that suggests there
Speaker 1: is not risk to pregnancy. So it's a little bit
Speaker 1: like the data is not entirely clear, but I will
Speaker 1: say there's a lot of survey studies that report disruption
Speaker 1: in people's menstrual cycles after exposure. What exactly is the
Speaker 1: cause of that, we don't really know. But the other
Speaker 1: thing that's often overlooked in descriptions of the symptoms of
Speaker 1: tear gas exposure is the intense psychological pressure that these
Speaker 1: chemicals put onto people. Huge, huge, right, the intense amount
Speaker 1: of discomfort that these cause because they are literally triggering
Speaker 1: your pain receptors, but in combination with the stress of
Speaker 1: the suit situations that they're used in, this can cause
Speaker 1: a huge amount of anxiety, which can increase your blood
Speaker 1: pressure leading to other complications and putting people at risk
Speaker 1: for things like depression, anxiety, and PTSD after the fact.
Speaker 1: So it's like, these agents are not benign and I'm
Speaker 1: not even done.
Speaker 2: The impact is not even like there are people who
Speaker 2: are more susceptible and people who are who yeah I
Speaker 2: have I tend to experience more severe outcomes.
Speaker 1: Exposure one hundred percent children and elderly. Yeah, children, the elderly.
Speaker 1: Because that's the thing about the safety studies that we
Speaker 1: do have, because it's not like we have no data, right,
Speaker 1: we have some data on this, but the vast majority
Speaker 1: of these safety studies are either in animal studies, which
Speaker 1: is just like to determine dosages, et cetera. Or they
Speaker 1: were done in young, healthy military recruits, most of whom
Speaker 1: were white males. And again this is mostly just to
Speaker 1: determine like irritant thresholds. And there's very little data that
Speaker 1: we have on long term exposures. We have some data
Speaker 1: on like repeat exposures or like different durations of exposures,
Speaker 1: but not much. And so what all of the data
Speaker 1: that we have and what the like you know, thresholds
Speaker 1: or like what is considered safe and things like that
Speaker 1: what these short term studies don't take into account are
Speaker 1: all of the conditions under which someone might be exposed
Speaker 1: and the characteristics, like you said, of the people being exposed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you have asthma or COPD or any other
Speaker 1: chronic lung condition, you are at higher risk of injury
Speaker 1: if you are a child. Kids have a completely different
Speaker 1: surface area to volume ratio than adults. Kids also breathe
Speaker 1: more than twice as much air per minute than adults do.
Speaker 2: Wild I had no idea, and it makes sense, but
Speaker 2: I just didn't think.
Speaker 1: Because they're bathing much faster. Their faces also sit lower
Speaker 1: to the ground because they are small, and these chemicals
Speaker 1: are heavier than air, they are not actually gases, and
Speaker 1: so their faces are being exposed to more of these chemicals.
Speaker 1: So they have a much higher risk of exposure and
Speaker 1: toxicity from exposure to these chemicals. And we are not
Speaker 1: studying these on children. If you're a very old person,
Speaker 1: or if these chemicals are being deployed in confined spaces
Speaker 1: with no ventilation, if you were in contact lenses. The
Speaker 1: effects of these chemicals is also amplified by certain conditions
Speaker 1: like high heat or high humidity. So the situation in
Speaker 1: which you're exposed as well as your individual characteristics are
Speaker 1: also going to affect the severity of your symptoms. And
Speaker 1: none of this is being studied in all of the
Speaker 1: data that we have, so to say that there's no
Speaker 1: long term effects, like, we don't really have data to
Speaker 1: show that there's no long term effects of these.
Speaker 2: I have to wonder about the research incentives too. Who
Speaker 2: is there funding to do studies on this? Who's funding it?
Speaker 1: And yeah, exactly, these are the great questions, right. There
Speaker 1: are some studies that have been done, like there was
Speaker 1: one out of Turkey that looked at people who had
Speaker 1: been repeatedly exposed to tear gases that did find higher
Speaker 1: rates of chronic respiratory illness things like COPD or asthma
Speaker 1: developing after repeated exposure. But again these are like, these
Speaker 1: studies are few and far between. There are some animal
Speaker 1: studies that point to potential carcinogenicity or things on some
Speaker 1: of these chemicals, but not all of them.
Speaker 2: Right then that's a whole separate dimension. Is like the
Speaker 2: different types of.
Speaker 1: Chemicals yep, and the exposure and the exact level and
Speaker 1: for how long, Like there's so many variables and we
Speaker 1: just we don't understand. And the thing is that these
Speaker 1: are being used in completely uncontrolled situations. Right. First of all,
Speaker 1: there are no federal regulations on the use of these chemicals,
Speaker 1: like there are none.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of what federal regulations would look
Speaker 2: like for this.
Speaker 1: It's a great question. I don't know, and it's but
Speaker 1: it's not, which also means like the use of these
Speaker 1: is not reported, et cetera. Like there is a lot
Speaker 1: that goes into that, but there's not like there is
Speaker 1: an up.
Speaker 2: That's you should what okay, okay, just keep going to.
Speaker 1: And I mean maybe it is on a local level.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know where you get that
Speaker 1: information from. The EPA has like an exposure an acute
Speaker 1: exposure guideline only for one of the tear gases, and
Speaker 1: that is CS. But it's not a regulation on its use,
Speaker 1: like you can't use this much of it in an
Speaker 1: environment or anything like that. It is guidance on how
Speaker 1: much is likely to cause an effect for emergency responders
Speaker 1: to be aware of if they are exposed during the
Speaker 1: course of duty. That's the only like federal level regulation
Speaker 1: that exists in all of the reading that I did
Speaker 1: about any of these. And the thing is that it's
Speaker 1: not just the United States tear gases. All of the
Speaker 1: ones that we talked about and so many more are
Speaker 1: used primarily by governments against their own citizens for so
Speaker 1: called crowd control across the entire globe. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of really great and by great, I mean horrific maps
Speaker 1: that Amnesty International put together. One that is Amnesty International
Speaker 1: US that's just looking at places where tear gas was
Speaker 1: used against peaceful protesters, and not just tear gas, it's
Speaker 1: other quote unquote less lethal forms of crowd control in
Speaker 1: the US in just twenty twenty during Black Lives Matter protests.
Speaker 1: And then there's another map that they put together that's
Speaker 1: like five hundred instances of tear gas and other weapons
Speaker 1: less lethal weapons being used against protesters for no reason,
Speaker 1: no reason right there.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that a reason exists. Say whether it's very
Speaker 2: acceptable or logical or humane region reason is up for
Speaker 2: debate exactly.
Speaker 1: But they documented this across like thirty one different countries,
Speaker 1: and that's just based on their reporting. Like I think,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about, it's harder to find places where
Speaker 1: this is not allowed to be used than trying to
Speaker 1: figure out where it is used. And it's not just governments.
Speaker 1: Tear gas is also used as an agent of terror,
Speaker 1: And there was a paper that I found from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty that in the cases they were able to identify
Speaker 1: what agent was used. Tear gas was used in twenty
Speaker 1: one percent of chemical attacks. So it's like it's accessible,
Speaker 1: and it is used across the globe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, accessible, and yeah you can just oh my god, Okay,
Speaker 2: And like.
Speaker 1: We kind of already talked about, I think that being
Speaker 1: able to witness the use of this so much over
Speaker 1: the last few years, because of our smartphones and because
Speaker 1: of our access to being able to video what is
Speaker 1: actually going on, we can see with our own eyes
Speaker 1: the circumstances under which these weapons are being deployed against
Speaker 1: peaceful protesters, against people trying to get aid from aid trucks,
Speaker 1: against like human beings. And I think it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot harder to spin this narrative that protests are
Speaker 1: violent and it is required that we use this kind
Speaker 1: of force. It doesn't mean that the propaganda machine isn't
Speaker 1: propaganda ing.
Speaker 2: But I was gonna say, yeah, like the narrative will
Speaker 2: be spun no matter what it's just exactly endless vomit
Speaker 2: of complete nonsense, but harmful, malicious nonsense, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think everyone knows at this point unless it's
Speaker 1: your first time tuning in. This is not a medical
Speaker 1: advice podcast, and so I'm not going to give you
Speaker 1: medical advice, but.
Speaker 2: You are going to tell us.
Speaker 1: I am going to tell you about Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: no treatments, yeah we have I have no specific therapeutics.
Speaker 1: There are people who are like, we need to develop therapeutics.
Speaker 1: Because there's also a whole discussion to be had about
Speaker 1: how much medical professionals do not know about tear gases,
Speaker 1: in part because when someone's exposed at a protest, we
Speaker 1: have no way of knowing what they're exposed to. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not like the police are like, hey, guys, just
Speaker 1: so you know today we're using pepper balls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, everyone okay with that? Great?
Speaker 1: Yeah right, no, so, and so it's really it's hard
Speaker 1: to know like what people are even exposed to. But
Speaker 1: all that said, there's also not as much data as
Speaker 1: there should be on the best ways to decontaminate. But
Speaker 1: many people listening might be going to protests and engaging
Speaker 1: in lawful protests. And be exposed to these agents because
Speaker 1: they're being used so frequently, so frequently so. Physicians for
Speaker 1: Human Rights is one organization that I know of that
Speaker 1: has some really great like infographics and information sheets on
Speaker 1: ways to protect yourself as a protester, which includes preventing
Speaker 1: exposure to tear gas by having things like face masks
Speaker 1: to cover your respiratory tre act goggles or glasses or
Speaker 1: something to protect your eyes, ideally not wearing contact lenses
Speaker 1: to avoid chemicals getting trapped under your contacts, long sleeves
Speaker 1: and gloves to prevent skin contact. And then once exposure happens,
Speaker 1: the general recommendation is that anyone who's small, like kids
Speaker 1: or things like that should be lifted to higher ground
Speaker 1: in order to reduce exposure. Getting out of exposure as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible is important, and then removing all contaminated
Speaker 1: clothing as soon as you can after exposure. And then
Speaker 1: for direct contact with eyes or mucus membranes, the best
Speaker 1: recommendation is just to rinse it profusely for like ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen minutes with plain water if you have it,
Speaker 1: but salty water if that's available, so like saline solutions
Speaker 1: or some people recommend like a dilute soapy solution with
Speaker 1: something like a very gentle baby soap or something, because
Speaker 1: that can help to like bind to and wash away
Speaker 1: any other chemicals that are there. But that's not based
Speaker 1: on that grade of data. But that's kind of the
Speaker 1: best that we have right now.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yeah, so it is. That's such a that's such
Speaker 2: a terrifying point about like we don't know what you're
Speaker 2: being sprayed with, so it could be their treatment might
Speaker 2: not be. That's I know, it's just a knives home
Speaker 2: yet another horrific point in all of this.
Speaker 1: And there's now like there's so many some of the
Speaker 1: a lot of the pepper balls that they're using in
Speaker 1: the US today are mixtures and so they have both
Speaker 1: CS and pepper spray in them, and then of course
Speaker 1: they're fired from a projectile which can cause damage as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, it's really it's really truly horrific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really awful. And that is tear.
Speaker 2: Gas sources sources. I have a bunch of different sources
Speaker 2: I'm gonna shout out too. In particular, one I already
Speaker 2: mentioned during the episode itself tear gas by Anna Fagan
Speaker 2: bom really great overview of the entire history of tear gas.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great place to start, actually start
Speaker 2: and end. There's a lot more out there, but there
Speaker 2: is also so much packed into that. And then also
Speaker 2: I found a paper from nineteen eighty nine that was
Speaker 2: quite interesting called tear Gas Harassing Agent or Toxic Chemical
Speaker 2: Weapon and that was by you at all and it's
Speaker 2: published in jama But there's more one that I have, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I also had quite a number of papers for this,
Speaker 1: but a couple that I think were really good overviews
Speaker 1: and things. One was by Brown at all from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one titled Reevaluating tear Gas Toxicity and Safety from
Speaker 1: the Journal Inhalationian Toxicology, and then another by Rothenberg at
Speaker 1: All from twenty sixteen called tear Gas and Epidemiological and
Speaker 1: Mechanistic Reassessment, and that was from the Annals of the
Speaker 1: New York Academy of Sciences. But there was a bunch more,
Speaker 1: including I will make sure to post those links to
Speaker 1: the two Amnesty International maps that I mentioned. And then
Speaker 1: I also have a few in addition to journal articles,
Speaker 1: just a few like news articles and things about recent
Speaker 1: uses of to your guests in the US and abroad,
Speaker 1: so you can find all of that on our website,
Speaker 1: This podcast will Kill You dot Com under the episode
Speaker 1: step you can.
Speaker 2: You can also find links to Bloodmobile, who thank you.
Speaker 2: Bloodmobile provide the music for this episode in all of
Speaker 2: our episodes.
Speaker 1: Thank you for doing that. We so appreciate it.
Speaker 3: We do.
Speaker 1: Thank you also to everyone at Exactly Right, especially Leana
Speaker 1: and Tom and Pete and Mark and Jess and everyone.
Speaker 2: Else, everyone, everyone, And thank you to you, Yes we do.
Speaker 2: And thank you to you listeners. You are the reason
Speaker 2: we do this. So thank you for tuning in.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and especially a shout out to our patrons.
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