LAST weekend I took a 50,000-volt shock from a Taser gun. I crumpled to the floor, and two seconds later I got up again. I felt fine. I can report that it hurt, and that it didn’t kill me. But the shock only lasted for half a second, while the default setting on the guns is ten times as long.
This account is unique, in that it comes from someone with no vested interest in selling, buying, using or banning these weapons. I’m not a criminal, and as far as I know I haven’t done anything lately that warrants being electrocuted. So why did I volunteer? Because no one has ever carried out a thorough, independent medical review of the Taser’s effects. Yet it is creeping into use across the world. Police in Western Australia, Canada and many states in the US have taken them on, and special forces in France and Germany also have access to them.
And, in what Birmingham hospital consultant Anthony Bleetman calls a “complete U-turn”, the British government last week accepted the Metropolitan Police’s decision to conduct trials of Tasers. When Bleetman and the Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police applied for permission to do the same in April, they were refused. “We were told to stop pursuing it, that it was not safe, and that much more research was required,” Bleetman says. “The Police Scientific Development Branch told us this technology was unacceptable for UK policing.”
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The Metropolitan Police is aiming to have Tasers on London’s streets by Christmas. The Home Office denies any U-turn, saying that each police authority is free to use whatever weapon it deems appropriate. But it admits that it has no further evidence on the Taser’s safety.
Tasers fire two barbed darts, which stay connected to the gun via trailing wires. The voltage between the darts interferes with the nervous system’s ability to control the muscles that hold the skeleton upright. Once hit, you fall immediately.
A Taser weapon has already been implicated in the miscarriage of a pregnant woman in the US. The darts sent a current across her uterus, and she miscarried the next day. Taser manufacturers dispute any causal link. In the Journal of Forensic Sciences (vol 37, p 956), a Los Angeles forensics officer alleges that Taser use has resulted in death. But the manufacturers point out that this has never been proven.
Last October, Bleetman gave a medical report on the technology to Northamptonshire police and the Home Office. The report, which was funded by Taser International, reached vaguely positive conclusions about the acceptability of the company’s Advanced Taser, now on sale to law enforcement agencies. But doubts remain. “It has been impossible to accurately calculate how much electrical energy the Advanced Taser delivers into the human body,” Bleetman says.
The Advanced Taser’s side effects have not yet been measured. Previous studies looked at the effects of the earlier version, which delivers a quarter of the power. And, because so little is understood about the effects of applying electricity to the body, Bleetman says, “it will be very difficult to determine absolute safety” for any electrical weapons. He also says there is “not enough proof either way” to determine the risk to people with pacemakers or defibrillators.
Bleetman believes Tasers could be an acceptable option for policing, but admits there are still problems. “No one knows what would happen if the barbs hit a victim in sensitive areas such as the eyes, the genitals or in an open mouth,” he says. Bleetman says he would welcome a truly independent and thorough assessment of the Advanced Taser, although he cautions that could take more than five years.
Taser International spokesman Steve Tuttle says the company is not to blame for the technology being introduced worldwide without independent review. The company, he says, can’t commission truly independent research. “We can’t expect people to give up their time for free,” he points out.
Except me, of course. And I’m not doing that again.
