GAUHATI, India – The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world's hottest chili.
After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.
The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India's northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.
It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.
"The chili grenade has been found fit for use after trials in Indian defense laboratories, a fact confirmed by scientists at the Defense Research and Development Organization," Col. R. Kalia, a defense spokesman in the northeastern state of Assam, told The Associated Press.
"This is definitely going to be an effective nontoxic weapon because its pungent smell can choke terrorists and force them out of their hide-outs," R. B. Srivastava, the director of the Life Sciences Department at the New Delhi headquarters of the DRDO said.
Srivastava, who led a defense research laboratory in Assam, said trials are also on to produce bhut jolokia-based aerosol sprays to be used by women against attackers and for the police to control and disperse mobs.
You would think that I would go with the stereotypical joke here about how my mother-in-law’s tuna casserole could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. Well, I don’t have a mother-in-law, and I’m 100 percent Italian so every woman in my family can cook like nobody’s business. Actually, I think my mother’s cooking has a better chance to bring world peace, rather than war.
First of all, I’m completely baffled by the fact that Indians use this chili pepper to cure stomach troubles. You would think that one bite/taste/breath of this “ghost chili” (which is about 125 to 400 times hotter than the jalapeño) would burn a hole in your stomach, scorch your intestines, and literally rip you a new asshole on the way out. I mean, I know what a couple bites of a jalapeño does to my stomach, and it’s not pretty. And how the hell do they use this pepper to fight the summer heat? “Here, take a bite of this. It’ll make the 120 degree desert feel like you’re walking naked through the Arctic?” This all seems completely ass backwards if you ask me.
You gotta give props to India for coming up with this idea though. Weaponizing a natural resource like the chili pepper is absolute genius. Maybe we can borrow some of these chili grenades to try and smoke out Osama bin Laden from the mountains of Pakistan, or Afghanistan, or wherever the fuck he’s hiding.
India sure seems to be on top of things recently. They continually steal our jobs, they are becoming more and more technologically advanced, their economy keeps growing at a ridiculous rate, and to top it all off, the third largest military in the world has now mastered the powerful weaponry of the chili pepper. Look out world, India is here to stay.
