For fear of tears

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by Naomi Bloch

The hazy days of the Quebec City Summit may be starting to fade from the public's memory, but the volunteer medical team who tended to the injured at the anti-FTAA demonstrations say people still need to be exposed to the realities of tear gas and other chemical weapons. "Right now, we are simply trying to publicize the fact that it is irresponsible and wrong to describe these chemical weapons as safe," says Scott Weinstein, a Montreal nurse and part of the Quebec City medical team.

Weinstein points to a peer-reviewed study published in 1989 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that analyzed the use of tear gas in South Korea. The authors point out that over 70 countries have banned the use of tear gas, and their research suggests that while tear gas is only designed to be used in smaller concentrations for crowd control, this rule has been ignored in repressive regimes such as the Gaza Strip and Panama. Over 1,700 canisters of tear gas were used during the weekend of the Summit of the Americas.

"Chemical weapons are classified as toxic weapons internationally," says Weinstein. "And there is available public research (unlike the all-but-secret texts of the FTAA) that links them to serious long-term health problems."