ABSTRACT
Since the last decade of the nineteenth century when Germany and France began developing lacrimators for wartime use, (Smart, 1997: 11) and through the subsequent years of research and development of a variety of lacrimators/Riot Control Agents (RCAs) to the present day, the military has devised many different systems to dispense them. As law enforcement agencies began to adopt RCAs for riot control, and later on as part of their nonlethal capabilities, dispensing systems underwent further development in the last quarter of the twentieth century. During that same period, RCAs became available to individual citizens for personal protection and a variety of smaller dispensers were developed. Today the military is involved in an increasing number of peacekeeping missions and industry is developing new dispensing systems to fill the need for nonlethal capabilities as well as force protection requirements at their bases of operation. Use of RCAs has also evolved over the last century as side effects became known, environmental clean-up became an issue, and treaties and multinational agreements were signed.
