PEPPER SPRAY SAFE? WE STILL DON'T KNOW
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2011 AT 11:56AMThis article originally appeared at The Sacramento Bee on December 4, 2011.
The pepper-spraying of 11 peaceful protesters at the University of California, Davis, provides an opportunity to reopen questions long ignored. Is oleoresin capsicum, the key ingredient of pepper spray, known to be safe? And if so, why have the authorities never performed the health risk assessments that were required by law when the weapon was introduced in 1992? Are they afraid of anything?
I was a state senator who worked on the issue when the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment was charged with conducting health studies during a three-year period in the 1990s. When the incident last month at UC Davis became a shocking global image, I checked wit