Poison as a political weapon

     Poison has been for a long time present in our societies. We can trace it back to the Egyptians and Romans. It´s being used like an easy and anonymous way to commit a murder. But why do I say it's a political weapon? Well it's being long used on kings,princes,spies, mafia members, etc and nowadays between political rivals. There are many common poisons such as arsenic that are easy to obtain and a lot of times are difficult to detect at the autopsy. That's the reason why poison is such a dangerous and effective weapon.

    What is a poison exactly and what´is the etymology ? Poisons are compounds that when they enter in contact with our body ( injected,inhaled,ingested,absorbed) cause that they don´t work normally ( what an eufemism to say that they kill you) , cause disruption commonly through chemicals. Although not all poisons kill you immediately, some of them need to be used in various doses.

     The word poison came from the Old French “ poison” , it is spelled the same but pronounced differently.It  first referred to drink, specially a medical drink, then to a  magic potion and later on a poisonous drink. 

    It's difficult to say when  poison was first used .  Evidence shows us that poison usage goes back to the earliest stages of humankind " showing that early humans had discovered poisons of varying potency and apllied to their weapons"  .

    To give you an idea, in ancient Rome, a person was designated as a “praegustator”, which means that they taste the monarch's food in order to prove if it's safe. Often a slave was nominated for this job.

    Sadly a very common known poison is “ mustard gas” , the one used in the concentration camps at the WW2 , in the gas chambers,  to kill the prisoners. Although the use of this gas dates back from WW1, when Germans used it on British soldiers. Even so the gas attacks were then used by almost all the armies. Firstly this gas, chlorine, was not as lethal as the one used at WW2. Mustard gas causes skin redness and blisters and the skin eventually peels off. Inhaling the vapors of this gas can also cause destruction of lung tissue .

    If we are talking about poison we can't avoid talking about the Sovietic Union and the Kremlin. They have been using poison as a political weapon for a very long time. The KGB instaurated in 1921 the Kamera also called Laboratory 1 or Laboratory 12. There by orders of  Stalin , a KGB scientist  experimented with poison . These experiments were made on humans : gulags´ prisoners , soviet spies or even militaries. No one was safe . The leader of these awful tests was Grigori Mairanovsky, also referred to as Dr. Death ( for obvious reasons) . He used ricin,mustard gas,curare,cyanide and digitoxin. He developed a deadly poison , which he named C2 or K2, who caused the almost immediate death of the victim. 

    With the passage of time soviet scientists innovated with new ways of poisoning people to look like natural causes and even in the daylight .They developed weapons that emitted clouds of cyanide and made death look like due to natural causes such as a heart attack. The Ukranian political writer Lev Rebet and the leader of Ukranian nationalist Stepan Bandera were unfortunately victims of these kind of murder. As well as Georgi Markov, the victim of the umbrella assassin” a bulgarian dissident who lived in London . He was waiting at the bus stop when all of the sudden felt a sharp twinge on his side.  He didn't see an insect but a man picking up an umbrella. Afterwards he became very ill and died 4 days later. The cause of death: ricin poisoning. These are only a few examples on how the KGB used poison as their main political weapon to eliminate people who were opposed to their political agenda .

Polonium and ricin are two common poisons used by the KGB.

    This dark era of the Sovietic Union even if to the eyes of the world community has ended , this is not the termination of the poison use. Famous cases like the poisoning of  ex-FSB (Federal Security Service)  spy Litivinenko, who started collaborating with Britain. He became a bold dissident of Putin's regime .   Eventually he became ill after meeting two ancient KGB officers at the Millenium hotel in London. Later on he finds out he was poisoned with polonium. His tragic death circled the globe.   Other two famous cases with “Novichok” a toxic substance created by the KGB are the  one of the  ex-KGB agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Great Britain and the Navalny´s one , the russian opposition leader, in Russia . In both cases Russia denied to have any concern about this crimes.

    Nevertheless the Kremlin is not the only government to make use of poisons. The infamous North Korea  regime used to kill Kim-Jong un's brother . He was attacked by two women at Malaysia airport who sprayed with a VX-nerve agent. The reason? He escaped from North Korea and was a regime critic. 

Furthermore Israel also made use of poison in Khaled Mashaal´s attemp of murder. He is a high rank member of Hamas, the Israel opposition . In 1997 two israelis agent try to murder him by injecting “ levonenfantyl” into his left ear. Nevertheless he survived thanks to the antidote ironically given by Israel's government.

    Poisons are only an example on how weapons are being developed and used for political reasons. Progress and new technologies are great of course , but the question is how we are going to use it. To good or bad purposes?