Indian Military To Use Hot Chili Pepper Grenades

Dr_Ken writes "According to this news story in Ananova, the Indian Defense Ministry is looking into a cheaper and simpler form of tear gas agent for riot dispersal and crowd control. From the article: 'Defense researchers say the idea is to replace explosives in small hand grenades with a certain variety of red chili to immobilize people without killing them, reports the BBC. The chili, known as Bhut Jolokia, is said to be 1,000 times hotter than commonly used kitchen chili. Probably much cheaper to fabricate than conventional CN or CS gases and way less toxic, too.'"

Give it away now

[stalky14]

Dissolves all shirts within blast radius.

Re:

[masmullin]

When your hit with this chilli gas you have to ... do a little dance and then you drink a little watah!

New menu item

[sprior]

Coming to the menu soon - bomb vindaloo...

Less toxic?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Where does the poster get the idea that the active ingredients in the pepper are less toxic than those in the more traditional tear gasses / "pepper" spray?

Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't. Perhaps the peppers are MUCH more toxic than the tear gas agents - to people who haven't built up the production of detoxification enzymes that pepper eaters do, or to people exposed in other tissues (like eyes, skin, and lungs) than those the pepper normally contacts when eaten.

Until there is research to indicate that the peppers are less toxic than the teargas agents to ordinary, non-acclimatized people, a lower toxicity should not be claimed.

Re:

[timmarhy]

interestingly you appear to stumble onto a point -Capsaicin appears to have a lower LD50 requirement than traditional tear gas agents, meaning it is in fact more toxic. this appears to be yet another example of the "it's natural so it must not be harmful" crowd getting it wrong

i don't think being a big curry eater is going to save you one bit though, that's a little silly.

Re:

[retchdog]

The LD50 alone means nothing; it must be compared to the "effective dose".

do not want

[timmarhy]

i have a mate who's a cop, he reckons as soon as a cop reaches for the pepper spray just give up, it's not worth being hit by.

But will it work?

[Asic Eng]

From my experience going out with Indian colleagues, I suspect they'd just bring some rice and chicken and purposely taunt the police...