TEAR GAS IS BANNED IN INTERNATIONAL WARFARE––WHY ARE THE POLICE USING IT ON U.S. CIVILIANS?
Janea Wilson
Police say they’re using tear gas to clear crowds, but the chemical agent’s effects can cause long-term physical damage.
On June 2, President Trump threatened to deploy military troops against Americans in response to nationwide protests after the recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Trump’s suggestion to use military force against U.S. civilians shocked many—but in fact police already have been using a weapon banned in international warfare against protesters: tear gas.
Across the country, police officers have tear-gassed protesters in attempts to clear out crowds. While U.S. officials have a history of using tear gas as a “riot control agent” (defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as “chemical compounds that temporarily make people unable to function by causing irritation to the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs and skin”), tear gas was banned in international warfare through the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997.
The Convention is a treaty that 193 nation-states are party to through the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) headquartered in the Netherlands. The treaty’s purpose was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in international.....
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