“It is easier for man to maintain morale in the face of bullets than in the presence of invisible gas.”
Prior to the recent Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, many Americans were well aware of the existence of tear gas. Stories from Ferguson, Standing Rock, and the southern border of the U.S. have long been known to the public. Now, the recent widespread use of tear gas against BLM protestors has evoked renewed condemnation from not only the general public, but also the medical community. The fight against tear gas has been a long one. It is a fight that we, as medical professionals, have an obligation to join and understand from both a domestic and global perspective.
“Nonlethal” weapons are a multi-billion dollar industry, with most of the major players based in the U.S.; of the various weapons in this category, tear gas is perhaps the most popular and widely used.1,2 While tear gas found its earliest uses in World War I, it quickly found favor with domestic law enforcement agencies in the U.S. in the 1920s. Soon after, the U.S. began exporting these weapons to colonized territories such as British India, where colonial forces used them to suppress indigenous resistance movements. Later, tear gas found a two-pronged use in the context of the Vietnam War — it was deployed from helicopters onto peaceful protestors in the U.S. and also used to asphyxiate Vietnamese civilians trapped within bomb shelters and Viet Cong tunnels.By the 1980s, the U.S. was exporting 6.5 million dollars’ worth of tear gas and deployment equipment annually to Israel, where the supplies were used against Palestinians during the First Intifada.1,2
By the 1990s, technology had advanced to the point where tear gas could be packaged into a convenient handheld spray. This was a crucial step in arming domestic U.S. police officers – tear gas could now be carried on their utility belts. Consequently, 60 deaths occurred directly from the use of tear gas between 1990 and 1995, and hundreds of lawsuits accused the police of using tear gas as a form of torture.1,2
In 1993, the Chemical Weapons Convention in Geneva upheld an international prohibition on the use of tear gas in warfare — with the crucial exception that tear gas could continue to be used for riot control.3 That exception was inserted after a long and heated debate during which governments justified that tear gas was too excellent and convenient a means of riot control to be entirely dispensed with. Since then, a weapon deemed too dangerous to use in international warfare has been used against peaceful protestors, children, elderly, the disabled, journalists, drivers, people attending funerals, and so on.1,4 Tear gas — by nature of it being a gas — is indiscriminate in its effects against all people in a geographical area. Meanwhile, who and what gets labelled a “rioter” or a “riot” is subjective. These subjective labels are determined on the spot by the person carrying the tear gas canister; there is no adjudicator to assess whether that label is fair before the tear gas is deployed — that is, if there even exists a “fair” way to deploy tear gas at people.
As we entered the 2000s, the use of tear gas continued to blossom, notably against anti-globalization protests (Seattle in 1999), the protests of the Arab Spring (2010), and Occupy protests (2011).2 In the early 2010s, a company based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania (with a population of 577) made millions of dollars exporting tear gas to Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, and other countries. This company, Combined Systems Inc (CSI), continues to be one of the largest suppliers of nonlethal weapons in the world.2 Canisters with “Made in the U.S.” branded in proud letters have been lobbed at men, women, and children, causing them to run around blindly while choking and gasping, sometimes falling to the ground convulsing. As protestors in Tahrir Square (Cairo, Egypt) in 2011 described, people tried to collect empty canisters to deduce which country was supplying these terrifying weapons: Was it the U.S.? Britain? China? Dock workers in the Suez finally refused to unload shipments of tear gas because they did not want to participate in the pain and death inflicted upon their fellow citizens.5
Israel, one of the world’s largest consumers of tear gas, uses the unpredictable and continuous deployment of tear gas against Palestinians as a means of both psychological and physical torture.6,7 Their primary supplier of nonlethal weapons is CSI, who used to fly the Israeli flag at their headquarters. Contrary to typical media depictions of the conflict, Palestinians are mostly tear-gassed while in their homes. Tear gas is frequently used in breaking up anti-establishment and anti-government protests in the U.S. and Europe as well — e.g. the ongoing Gilets jaunes movement in France.1,2,4 It is also frequently deployed in prisons. In fact, the U.S. has developed various flavors of military-grade tear gas, some of which cause excruciating pain upon contact with human skin, which are used both to herd prisoners back into their cells and also to spray in the faces of prisoners trapped within tiny cells.8
In line with the critical importance of police departments as consumers of weaponry, CSI also conducts regular trainings for U.S. police officers; these include a three-day “less lethal certification program,” which encourages officers to incorporate the use of tear gas and other “less lethal” weapons into their existing arsenal.9
Today, governments all over the world are purchasing record amounts of tear gas. Amnesty International’s interactive Tear Gas Incident Map shows widespread use in anti-government protests.4 Of note, the use of tear gas is most commonly incurred in protests against inequality, corruption, environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and the dismantling of social democratic policies. Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, Haiti, the DRC, Nigeria, France, Brazil, Hong Kong, or Kashmir… the list of governments utilizing tear gas goes on and on. Governments often do not track the fatalities or injuries associated with tear gas, leading to the invisibility of both its victims and the extent of trauma inflicted. This lack of oversight allows for the continued unchecked use of this weapon. Amnesty International has considered tear gas a “tool of torture” for years, yet the end is nowhere in sight. The banning of tear gas in international warfare as an acknowledgment of its dangerous nature is a farce: most warfare occurs domestically, between civilians and the government forces who once swore to protect and defend those civilians. Ask the people in Ferguson. Ask the protestors at Standing Rock. Ask our classmates who encountered tear gas as they protested the murders of Black Americans in the summer of 2020.
Dr. Rohini Haar, MD, MPH, is an emergency physician and researcher at UC Berkeley who specializes in the protection of health and human rights during humanitarian crises and conflicts. Dr. Haar has spoken extensively about the medical effects of tear gas. As she explains in an interview with Amnesty International, when tear gas touches the skin it dissolves to create an intense burning sensation. 4 The powder sticks to both skin and clothing, prolonging the pain and torture. People’s eyes tear up and burn intensely, resulting in blurred vision and an impaired ability to run to safety. As the gas is inhaled deep into the lungs, it irritates and inflames the delicate alveolar membranes; in large amounts, the gas causes chemical burns and sloughing off of the membranes. In populations that are repeatedly exposed, people develop a progressive inflammatory reaction that causes heightened sensitivity with each exposure. These repeat victims start to experience respiratory distress even when not directly exposed. Patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) experience severe and life-threatening exacerbations. For children and the elderly, the doses required to cause these symptoms are much lower. In addition, Dr. Haar emphasizes the role of tear gas canisters as projectiles — when fired indiscriminately into a crowd, the canisters can cause blunt trauma, disfiguring injuries, and even death.
Since World War I, tear gas has made enormous strides in popularity in part due to its reputation as a “nonlethal” weapon. However, as Anna Feigenbaum — author of “Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of World War I to the Streets of Today” — put it: “The idea that a weapon can be nonlethal is ridiculous. To say that something which was designed to cause sensory torture and inflict pain, that we know has caused a lot of death, and that its actual real-world use reveals it to be something that can easily be lethal, means certainly that calling it nonlethal should not be legal.”5
Yet advocators for tear gas are and always have been fiercely proud of their invention.1,5 While admitting that tear gas is indiscriminate, they argue that it is just better than the alternative — the alternative, of course, being “lethal” force (the only alternative in their imagination).
As we remember George Floyd, who died not from a bullet but from a carefully and cruelly placed body part, I think about Feigenbaum’s response. “Explain to me,” she says, “what a less lethal death is. What does that mean, to die in a less lethal way?”5
1. Feigenbaum, Anna. Tear Gas: From the battlefields of World War I to the streets of today. Verso Books, 2017.
2. Feigenbaum, Anna. 100 Years of Tear Gas. The Atlantic, 2014. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/100-years-of-tear-gas/378632/
3. Articles I(5), II(2), II(7), II(9)(d) of 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention in Geneva https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/articles
4. Tear Gas: An Investigation. Amnesty International. 2020. https://teargas.amnesty.org/
5. Kinney, Jen. The global tear gas business is booming. It’s complicated. The World, 2018. https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-11-29/global-tear-gas-business-booming-its-complicated
6. No Safe Space: Health Consequences of Tear Gas Exposure Among Palestine Refugees. Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law. 2020. https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/programs-projects/no-safe-space
7. I Husseini, L O’Hare. “Devastating”: Israeli tear gas’ effect on Palestinians. Aljazeera, 2017. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/world-exposed-place-tear-gas-palestine-171226141202232.html
8. Moattar D. Prisons are using military-grade tear gas to punish people. The Nation, 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/prisons-are-using-military-grade-tear-gas-to-punish-inmates/
9. Combined Systems, Inc. 2020; https://www.combinedsystems.com/training/.
Sanjna Surya is an MS3 at the Perelman School of Medicine. Sanjna can be reached by email at [email protected].
