Chemical Mace – CN Gas
Chemical Mace was developed in the 1960s as a defensive spray for private use and was quickly adopted by the police as a supposedly non-lethal weapon for controlling demonstrations. During the incident in Schanzenpark as part of the first Stonewall demonstration in Hamburg on June 28, 1980, the police used CN gas against unarmed and peaceful demonstrators. In English, the brand name mace is now used as a generic term for tear gas in general, while the name chemical mace in German media refers to sprays containing the active ingredient ω-chloroacetophenone (CN) . Due to its highly hazardous effects (possible consequences include blindness, skin cancer, and death from lung damage), CN gas may only be discharged from a sufficient safety distance and has gradually been replaced by 2-chlorobenzylidene malonic acid dinitrile (CS) (tear gas) and pepper spray. The effects of CN were widely discussed in the 1970s in the German media as part of coverage of the militarization of the police and the increasingly violent crackdown on demonstrators.