About Pepper Spray - Scientific American

[Richard D]

About Pepper Spray

By Deborah Blum | November 21, 2011

One hundred years ago, an American pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville developed a scale to measure the intensity of a pepper’s burn. The scale – as you can see on the widely used chart to the left – puts sweet bell peppers at the zero mark and the blistering habanero at up to 350,000 Scoville Units.

I checked the Scoville Scale for something else yesterday. I was looking for a way to measure the intensity of pepper spray, the kind that police have been using on Occupy protestors including this week’s shocking incident involving peacefully protesting students at the University of California-Davis.

As the chart makes clear, commercial grade pepper spray leaves even the most painful of natural peppers (the Himalayan ghost pepper) far behind. It’s listed at between 2 million and 5.3 million Scoville units. The lower number refers to the kind of pepper spray that you and I might be able to purchase for self-protective uses. And the higher number? It’s the kind of spray that police use, the super-high dose given in the orange-colored spray used at UC-Davis.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/11/21/about-pepper-spray/

[mod mom]

1. "we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign

than it really is"

:mad:

[Cirque du So-What]

2. K & R for visibility

and to demonstrate to the general public what these shitheels with badges are doing to nonviolent protestors.

[csziggy]

3. Wow - that just reinforces that pepper spray would be lethal for me

I react to standard red chile peppers with serious blistering all the way through my gastrointestinal tract. I get blisters if I handle a pepper.

Getting sprayed with commercial pepper spray and getting into my respiratory tract would likely kill me - slowly and very painfully.

I think I will have to stay away from any protests for now. :evilfrown:

[EFerrari]

5. One of the students at Davis was hospitalized with an asthma attack.

:grr:

[OnyxCollie]

10. I expect Rand Paul will say there is no connection

between pepper spray and asthma.

[EFerrari]

11. The students sitting on the ground were expecting to be shoot

from the back if anything because the police had been behind them. The one on Amy's show today said there was no announcement that pepper spray would be used.

Truly criminal.

[OnyxCollie]

14. Self-delete.

'cause it ain't worth it.

[csziggy]

21. I hope they will sue

While I hate seeing the university losing the money, the administration was complicit in allowing the cops to inflict violence on the students, did nothing to curtail the police excesses and sent them back out to commit more violence against students. Since the only language the powers that be seem to understand is taking money away from them, that is what is needed to teach the university administrators a lasting lesson.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

17. I'm allergic to hot stuff too.

Can't eat any kind of peppers, red, yellow, bell or otherwise. also allergic to tomatoes. That is called a deadly nightshade allergy because tomatoes are in that family.

It would probably kill me.

[csziggy]

20. As long as there is no rating on that scale, I am OK

So it's not a true allergy, just a sensitivity. But then I used to not be allergic to wasp stings, then started getting severe swelling from stings to the point one on my elbow threatened to impair my breathing, the swelling went so high up my arm and neck.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. If you have any kind of medical condition

that would be exasperated by an irritant... stay away from them.

Says the one with Asthma... a risk I am willing to take.

[csziggy]

19. Asthma caused by numerous allergies

Until I started using Zyrtec I had to stay out of crowds. There was inevitably someone in the crowd wearing a perfume I reacted to, or that had washed their hands or clothes with a soap with a fragrance I reacted to.

So I am conditioned against being in a crowd already. Watching the police spraying those students and all the other protestors in so many different cities has caused anxiety because I can only imagine what it would be like. Even if I could walk around, I am afraid to go to the local Occupy actions because of the worry about what the police might do.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Richard D.

[louis-t]

6. Can't wait for Rs to say "pepper spray is GOOD for you".

[CoffeeCat]

8. Yes, peppers have vitamins...

...and we should just open our mouths, accept those searing-hot antioxidants
and say thank you to the police!

[Fire Walk With Me]

13. Protesters crave Brawndo, 'cause it's got pepperspray!

[CoffeeCat]

7. I'm glad to see the scientific community...

...and science journalists revealing the truth about what is really going on here.

Scientific American is well respected, and the Psychology Today article--which is
currently #1 on the DU Greatest Page is very well done, as well.

[OnyxCollie]

9. I bought a bottle of Mrs. Renfro's Ghost Pepper salsa

the other day.

http://www.renfrofoods.com/press-GhostPepper.aspx

It is HOT!

I can't imagine what pepper spray is like in the eyes or mouth (and I hope not to ever find out.)

I like hot peppers and hot salsa, but I have to say the Ghost Pepper salsa is damn near painful. It didn't burn my lips or my mouth, but I could feel it in my chest.

The salsa, while tasty, is a little too much like a BBQ sauce for my liking.

[Richard D]

15. I would guess

That the salsa had very little of the Bhut Jolokia in it. That pepper, at 1 million on the Scoville scale, has sent people to the hospital.

[OnyxCollie]

16. It had more than enough. nt

[Spazito]

12. Excellent information...

Thanks for posting this, it is very educational.

Recommended.

[Wilms]

22. ^

[eridani]

23. K&R for useful information n/t