Cocaine and Pepper Spray — A Lethal Mix?
Deaths in U.S. police custody during the early 1990s may have been the result of an interaction between capsaicin, the key ingredient in pepper sprays, and psychostimulant drugs, an experiment in mice suggests.
The team also reviewed 26 autopsy reports and Californian police reports between 1993 and 1995 of people who died shortly after being subdued with pepper spray. They noted that 19 of them had evidence of psychostimulants in their blood and nine had cocaine.
If the two have a fatal interaction in people then police forces might have to rethink their use of pepper spray as a non-lethal weapon.
To read the full story, go to
www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427345.300-cocaine-and-pepper-spray--a-lethal-mix.html.
Here is another article about cocaine and pepper spray deaths.