Rachel explains how "Scoville Units" are calculated and where pepper spray stands on the scale

[Scuba]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#45410896


Compares various peppers, Tobasco sauce, habaneros, ghost peppers and of course, pepper spray. Further discussion regarding doses, distance from which the capsicum is sprayed and effects on humans. Studies of pepper-workers are cited.


With Deborah Blum.


Runs just over nine minutes.

[livvy]

1. Scientific American Article on Pepper Spray

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.

The reason pepper-spray ends up on the Scoville chart is that – you probably guessed this - it’s literally derived from pepper chemistry, the compounds that make habaneros so much more formidable than the comparatively wimpy bells. Those compounds are called capsaicins and – in fact – pepper spray is more formally called Oleoresin Capsicum or OC Spray.
Continue reading at the link...

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

[Scuba]

3. Excellent amplification! Thanks!

[Vinca]

4. Wow - I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.

[Maine_Nurse]

8. Actually, that isn't 100% correct...

(not agreeing with what some police have been doing)

Most current larger canisters in use by US police as riot control devices are a relatively low concentration of OC (5-10%) as compared to the up to 22% found in smaller civilian personal use cans.

[Scuba]

10. Haven't seen that previously, just the opposite. That police are using the "hot stuff". Can you ..

... provide any link or reference? Thanks.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Glad she did this

"Pepper spray" is a doublespeak euphemism for "toxic poison". They want people to think its some sort of condiment, or something benign.

[ladyVet]

5. Exactly right.

Minimize the risks and effects, and turn people speaking out against it into whiny babies.

I've been "pepper" sprayed, courtesy of Uncle Sam during tear gas training in the USAF, and it wasn't any fun.

[Hissyspit]

9. People who have been sprayed with it know: It hurts like hell.

[Frustratedlady]

6. The RW would have been ecstatic if the police had water-boarded them

to clear off the pepper spray.

I still say that if we had the Roman arenas back, there wouldn't be a ticket available to buy...Lions: 12/Peons: 0! They want blood and they want to sit and enjoy it being drawn. Idjits!

[Major Hogwash]

7. Man, if that don't wake people up as to how bad of an assault that was, nothing ever will.

That cop should be canned.