What Tear Gas and Rubber Bullets Do to the Human Body

[justaprogressive]

As protesters in Los Angeles clashed with law enforcement this weekend over the Trump administration’s immigration raids, police employed military-style tactics, including using tear gas, flash grenades, and pepper-spray projectiles on demonstrators. In one instance, Lauren Tomasi, a reporter with Australia’s 9News, was shot with a rubber bullet fired by law enforcement during a live broadcast.

Though not explicitly designed to kill, these so-called “less-lethal” weapons can cause serious health effects—and, in some cases, lasting harm. The use of these weapons can result in respiratory problems, head injuries, and even death. In the United States, police force of all types results in 75,000 nonfatal injuries requiring hospital treatment and 600 to 1,100 deaths every year, according to the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project at the University of Illinois Chicago.

The types of health effects and injuries can vary depending on the weapon being used. Tear gas and pepper spray, types of chemical irritants, can cause tearing, pain, and burning of the eyes, skin irritation, sore throat, sneezing, coughing, and vomiting. Tear gas usually refers to 2-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (agent CS) or chloroacetophenone (agent CN), which work by activating pain receptors in the eyes, nose, mouth, and lungs. Pepper spray is highly concentrated pepper oil, oleoresin capsicum (agent OC), which produces a powerful burning sensation.

“The short-term effects are immediate and severe,” says Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Center and a professor at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. In some cases, people can experience respiratory distress, difficulty breathing, and asthma-like symptoms.

https://www.wired.com/story/what-tear-gas-does-to-the-human-body/

[SheltieLover]

1. Kick

[underpants]

2. I've been tear gassed twice and it sucks

Once at a party in college. Some guy, ROTC I heard, got kick out of a party across the hall so he went and got a tear gas grenade he had for some reason. We were totally unaware until we walked out of the apartment we were in. We shut the door and found any water we could - sinks, shower, toilet.

The second time was in the Army. It’s a standard of basic training.

[surfered]

6. Sounds familiar. I was tear gassed attending Vietnam War protests and again in Basic Training after being drafted.

[FirstLight]

3. THIS....and my own health issues, is why I can't go out and protest like I want to

I respect and admire those younger souls and those who are able bodied enough to weather these weapons in the good fight...

[sheshe2]

4. That sign is heartbreaking.

Protest in Peace We Got This……and they got tear-gassed for that evil message.

[markpkessinger]

5. The use of tear gas is banned in international warfare . . .

. . . because it is considered a chemical weapon. Yet we tolerate its fairly routine use by police!

https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/tear-gas-and-politics-protest-policing