The Dangers of Tear Gas

Right now, Portland City Councilor Sameer Kanal is developing legislation to limit the use of chemical weapons like tear gas in Portland.

TAKE ACTION NOW to let Mayor Wilson and City Council know you want them to pass legislation restricting tear gas!

Tear Gas or “Riot Control Agents” come in a variety of formulations, sizes, concentrations and delivery mechanisms, depending on manufacturer. Within seconds of exposure, riot control agents can cause a burning sensation to the eyes and skin, inflammation of airways, coughing, difficulty breathing, choking, pouring mucus, and nausea/vomiting. Pepper spray/pepper balls and CS gas are some of the most commonly used riot control agents in America.

Though commonly referred to as “tear gas,” the active compounds are not actually gases but solids. Riot Control Agents are deployed in many different ways, e.g. as personal defense sprays or from grenades or canisters. Sprays use a liquid formulation that is released from a pressurized dispenser, while grenades and canisters use a powdered form blended with a pyrotechnic mixture that can be aerosolized for dispersion as a smoke or fog. These pyrotechnic devices can be thrown by hand or fired from launchers.

Chemical irritants include a wide range of agents that have been developed and deployed for decades, in addition to ones that are currently under development. According to Chemical Weapons Research Consortium, a group dedicated to identifying chemical agents and documenting their use in Portland (during 2020), canisters collected from protest areas during 2020 contained trace amounts of hexachloroethane (commonly HC), a white powder that, when heated in the presence of metal salts, reacts to form a dense cloud of green or white smoke that smells like camphor and wreaks havoc on biological systems.

Chemical agents can contaminate soil, water, and air, harming trees and other plants where powders settle, animals and other nearby living organisms, and the ecosystems of local waterways.

In America, peer reviewed studies of the effects of tear gas have been hard to come by, and early studies have been mostly conducted on young, healthy male army recruits. In the 1990s, the international Chemical Weapons Convention banned the use of tear gas in war.

Asha Hassan, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine who has studied the reproductive health impacts of tear gas, said it’s sometimes diﬃcult to find out what is in each canister because the information is private for the companies that make them.

In 2021, as part of a Portland Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study, Hassan and others surveyed 2,257 adults who had been exposed to tear gas in Portland during 2020. The study demonstrated that community residents and protestors who reported being exposed to tear gas also commonly experienced health issues affecting multiple body systems, including previously undescribed menstrual disruption, sometimes persisting for days to weeks, and often requiring medical attention.

To protect yourself from tear gas (including canisters):

Cover up as much as possible: long sleeves, long pants, high socks, scarf.

Wear a helmet. Use a respirator or gas mask (ideally shatter-resistant), hearing protection, and shatter-resistant eye protection.

Do not wear contact lenses – you’ll have to throw them away and they can trap chemicals.

If driving, line car seats with trash bags to contain the powder that falls off clothing.

Frontline responders have used protective clothing and heat‑proof gloves to reduce burns from canisters, etc.

More info on respirators and gas masks here: https://www.zacgoodwin.com/protest-gear-guide-gas-mask/

If exposed to chemical irritants:

Try not to panic. Do not touch face/skin/eyes. Walk, don’t run. Running may cause you to breathe more heavily, filling your lungs with more tear gas. If in a crowd, there is also risk of a stampede. Try to keep your breathing even.

If the riot control agents were deployed outdoors, move away from the area and out of low-lying clouds. Go to higher ground if possible. If the riot control agents were released indoors, get out of the building.

Milk is not necessary to flush away tear gas from eyes/face. Use water.

Sudecon wipes are helpful. See our resources section for Missy Rohs’ herbal aftercare, as well.

Remove clothing carefully. If you are keeping the clothing, air outdoors for 48 hours or more before washing.

Wash hands. If you were wearing contact lenses, throw them away. Take a shower with cold water (hot water opens pores, and the chemicals can cause more irritation, etc).

We also want to acknowledge the emotional impacts of being exposed to tear gas, as well as other harms experienced while protesting. Seek support from others to process.

For workshops on protest safety and chemical weapons defense, check out Portland Action Medics: https://www.instagram.com/portlandactionmedics

photos/text Irene Tejaratchi Hess

banner photo: Valentin Angel Fernandez

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Sources and Resources

List of sources:

https://lethalindisguise.org/crowd-control-weapons/chemical-irritants/

https://www.startribune.com/federal-agents-are-deploying-clouds-streams-and-spatters-of-chemical-irritants-what-are-their-health-consequences/601568140

https://futurehuman.medium.com/scientists-identified-a-green-poisonous-gas-used-by-federal-agents-on-portland-protesters-5b56ac20a624

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5096012/

https://phr.org/our-work/resources/health-impacts-of-crowd-control-weapons-chemical-irritants-tear-gas-and-pepper-spray/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/tear-gas-protests-dangerous-police-coronavirus-1010359/

Additional resources:

Aftercare advice from an herbalist (Missy Rohs):

https://anarchiststudies.org/so-you-got-teargassed-by-missy-rohs/

Forensic Architecture study of tear gas use in Portland in 2020:

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/04/17/study-2020-portland-oregon-protests-tear-gas-concentrations-far-exceeded-safe-levels/

Kaiser study on tear gas use in Portland in 2020 (“Because of reports of menstrual cycle disturbances from U.S. protesters exposed to tear gas, we sought to gather data on this phenomenon as endocrine effects of tear gas remain unstudied to date. The objective of this cross-sectional survey was to describe the health consequences of environmental exposure to tear gas agents and associated healthcare utilization among adults from the general population.”):

https://www.opb.org/article/2021/04/28/study-finds-widespread-reports-of-menstrual-irregularities-among-portland-protesters/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8074355/