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Market strong for over-the-counter sex stimulants, but backlash brews
By Josh Shaffer
McClatchy Newspapers
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RALEIGH, N.C. -- Scan a gas station or corner market shelf and there, alongside the Slim Jims, hangs a package of pills that neighbors buy like bubble gum or hate like sin. Stamina-Rx. Rize 2 The Occasion pills. Horny Goat Weed. Red, brown or blue, they promise exotic herbal remedies for boosting a man’s sexual potency — $3 a pack on the cheap end. They’re a poor man’s Viagra.

The market has exploded for these over-the-counter sex stimulants. But there’s a backlash, and it is especially strong in some older, poorer neighborhoods where leaders believe these drugs add to already rampant prostitution. They want them off the shelves.

“I see a lot of these items out here being used and laying in the streets,” said the Rev. Eric Ellis of Philippian Community Church in Raleigh. “It affects the young children going in the stores with their parents. They see these things and they get curious.”

In Durham, N.C., too, leaders believe the corner store has strong influence over neighborhoods, and they resent how owners pander to people’s weaknesses. The pills often sit right up front, on the counter, inside display cases alongside lottery tickets and flavored blunts.

The Rev. Melvin Whitley said he recently saw a local store selling beer for 50 cents a can. Soda, meanwhile, went for $1.29.

“They lure people in there to buy beer,” he said, “and of course they buy other stuff to go with it, including sexual stuff.”

Herbal sex drugs have jumped to a $500 million industry nationwide, and that’s only counting those that call themselves all-natural, said Rodney Tallman, CEO of Life Span Labs, which makes 112 Degrees from a pair of Thai herbs.

The gamut runs from a pair of Stamina-Rx pills for $3, sold in most gas stations, to a $60 bottle for a month’s supply of 112 Degrees, available exclusively online.

A former Nike executive, Tallman teamed with a well-known naturopathic physician to research the entire market before jumping in with their own herbal treatment, which is geared for single men in their 50s who want to stay sexually active.

Their research unearthed products that often brought on nasty side effects — anxiety and high blood pressure among them, Tallman said.

Often, manufacturers were mired in legal trouble for fraud, such as the maker of Enzyte supplements, or their drugs had gotten health warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as did Stamina-Rx in 2003.

“There’s a perception that it’s easy money and sex sells,” Tallman said. “There’s a lot of market people coming together with products thrown together.”

Many hundreds of pills and liquids promise better sex for both men and women — some effective, many of them garbage, said Chris Kilham, an herb hunter and adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

A small dose of epimedium, or the African tree bark yohimbe, really works, he said. But many more of these supplements have been tainted with erectile dysfunction drugs that require a prescription and can be dangerous in combination with other drugs. Others contain useless ingredients, he said, such as the lichen called xanthoparmelia scabrosa listed on the back of a Stamina Rx pack.

“I’m such an advocate for plants that if there were even a glimmer, I’d leap right on it,” he said. “I think they put that in there to make it look different.”

Regardless, stores report pills flying off shelves.

Raj Patel points to a hanging peg inside Cary Mart, his sister’s store.

A month ago, he ordered 24 packages of Stamina-Rx and is now down to six.

A quick tour of a dozen-odd shops show all but a handful carry at least one brand of sexual enhancements. “I remember selling five of them to a Hispanic guy at five bucks a pop,” said Anil Patel, who owns D&T Mini Mart on Raleigh’s western edge. “He didn’t care.”

Lots of business exclusively over Internet

Much of the enhancement market, such as 112 degrees, does business exclusively over the Internet.

Kilham of UMass Amherst recommends selecting a manufacturer that operates under FDA’s good manufacturing practices, or GMP.

“If you buy a $10 toaster, it’s just going to burn your bread,” he said. “The same goes for herbs.”

Take a look
These are some of the sexual stimulants sold on open display at convenience stores such as the New Bern Avenue Mini Mart in Raleigh, N.C. (Jason Arthurs/Raleigh News & Observer/MCT)
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Reader comments on this story - 10 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

Uncle Buster wrote on Jul 2, 2008 9:02 PM:

" crybaby doesn't know where to shop. hee hee d;>} "

C.A.T.S. wrote on Jul 1, 2008 4:20 PM:

" they must sell this stuff some where close to the Constitution Trail "

110100100 wrote on Jul 1, 2008 2:13 PM:

" moon mullins - It’s a flavored cigar, sometimes just the cigar wrap. Generally, the tobacco is removed and replaced with pot. :D "

moon mullins wrote on Jul 1, 2008 1:30 PM:

" I pay at the pump, so I seldom enter the gas station. So, pray tell. What is a flavored blunt? I don't pay attention at today's snake oil gimmicks. "

wrote on Jul 1, 2008 1:06 PM:

" So… there’s no danger, this is just another “wag the finger” story. Why do these newspapers keep interviewing “reverends” as if they’re authority figures or subject matter experts? They might as well interview a fortune teller or a football announcer or, better yet, the guy who sells Oxy-Clean. "

Crybaby wrote on Jul 1, 2008 12:59 PM:

" The best aphrodisiac I know of is sexual intercourse. Fortunately, it's unlikely that it will be sold over the counter anytime soon. "

T wrote on Jul 1, 2008 12:58 PM:

" And this is any different than the commercials on TV for Viagra or Cealis? Find something else to report on "

JMK wrote on Jul 1, 2008 12:33 PM:

" “If you buy a $10 toaster, it’s just going to burn your bread,” he said. “The same goes for herbs.” - hahahaha... I mean... OUCH! "

BookLover wrote on Jul 1, 2008 12:20 PM:

" They are mad at the sex pills but not the flavored blunts or lottery tickets? "

Zab wrote on Jul 1, 2008 12:09 PM:

" The notion that these things increase prostitution is ludicrous. If people are dumb enough to believe that these things really work then the fools deserve to be parted from their money and the companies making them deserve to be shut down when enough evidence is collected to prove they don't do what they say they will. "
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