Despite a strong international taboo against the use of chemical weapons and over 125 years of international treaties outlawing these armaments, the use of tear gas in war, colonial settings, and against domestic uprisings remains. This is both because the legal status under international treaties for tear gas is contested and because loopholes for the use of tear gas against one’s own citizens were explicitly carved out by major powers. This chapter argues that the interplay between prohibition and defiance of norms surrounding tear gas has allowed it to take on a particular function under colonial regimes of respiratory governance. That is, the use of tear gas inflicts the status of “citizen” on subjects exposed to it. However, this assertion of citizenship over subjects does not confer upon them with rights and protections usually afforded by the status in liberal governance. Instead, it marks them as gassable targets, vulnerable to state violence and disciplined by tear gas into a racial hierarchy. Following the work of atmospheric geographers like Marijn Nieuwenhuis and tear gas historians like Anna Feigenbaum, I trace the history of international law to discuss how this exceptional status came to be and show how international law is weaponized through the use of tear gas by Great Britain and Israel.