Mace Questions

Police across the country have gratefully adopted Mace, a chemical stun gas in a pressurized can, as a means of coping with rioters and unruly suspects. Used as recommended (from at least 3 ft. away, in 1-sec. bursts), it causes temporary loss of vision and inability to move--effects far less drastic than those of a club or a .38-cal. bullet.

Lately, however, questions have arisen about possible long-range effects of Chemical Mace. A San Francisco ophthalmologist, Lawrence Rose, has squirted it at close range into one eye of each of three rabbits, whose eye structure is biologically similar to that of humans; he has caused permanent corneal scarring in one.* In Ann Arbor, Mich., the face of a Negro who was sprayed last March is still partially depigmented; Ann Arbor police have discontinued using the weapon. A Columbus reporter, Robert Mac Vicar, who was Maced in the face during Ohio State University demonstrations last fall, is suing for $300,000 for violation of his civil rights.

Perhaps prompted by the complaints and uncertainty, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, Dr. William Stewart, has taken a cautious position on the spray. In a letter to state and local health authorities, he warned that Mace's prolonged irritant ability "clearly increases the possibility of more than transient effects to the exposed individuals unless treatment is prompt." He added that further study would be necessary "to determine possible chronic effects." A spokesman for

General Ordnance Equipment Corp., Mace's manufacturer, replied that although the device has already been used 20,000 to 30,000 times, there has been no evidence of any damage worse than "a burn equivalent to sunburn."

Nonetheless, the police forces of Cleveland, Kansas City, Mo., Madison, Wis., Los Angeles and San Francisco last week stopped using the spray. Pittsburgh Director of Public Safety David Craig took the opposite view. In most cities, newspaper reports of the Surgeon General's letter omitted the point that prompt treatment would forestall permanent damage. To Craig, that fact meant that Mace, properly used, was now clearly the safest weapon in his arsenal and "the first feasible nonlethal hand weapon since the caveman invented the wooden club."

*Dr. Rose also suggested that a defense is to smear Vaseline on uncovered skin, a tactic used by Columbia University rioters among others. The manufacturers hold that Vaseline traps the droplets of Mace and so is a hindrance rather than a help.

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