Sex drugs' critics hate tawdry trade

RALEIGH -- 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 older, poorer neighborhoods where leaders think 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 on Rock Quarry Road. "It affects the young children going in the stores with their parents. They see these things, and they get curious."

In Durham, too, leaders think 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 Durham 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.

Fraud charges persist

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 across the Triangle report pills flying off shelves.

Raj Patel points to a hanging peg inside Cary Mart on Old Apex Road, 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."

In Southeast Raleigh, there is plenty of resentment. Activist Octavia Rainey says her protests have earned the enmity of store owners. She gave a tour of a few stores last week wearing a broad-brimmed hat as a disguise.

Many pastors and businessmen share her fear that sex products taint Southeast's image as a neighborhood where illicit sex thrives.

"I just don't think it paints a good picture of the south side of Raleigh," said James Montague, who started the Statue Side Business Plaza off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. "You walk in the store, and that's the first thing you see on the counter. It's actually on the counter. It's got to be one of their big moneymakers."

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

Kilham 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."