Pepper Spray: “Banned for Use in War.”

Meredith Melnick of Time:

“… in the mid-1990s, the U.S. Department of Justice cited nearly 70 fatalities linked to pepper-spray use…. Getting pepper-sprayed is worse than getting maced [PDF] — mace causes burning but no respiratory effects [which pepper spray causes]….

Classified as a riot-control agent and banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention, pepper spray is meant to be used against violent attackers who are resisting arrest and threatening physical harm to others….

According to guidelines [PDF] for all California State schools, pepper spray is meant to be used for less than one second on any one person.”