Sex drugs' critics hate tawdry trade

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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 in Raleigh, N.C., there's been 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 Raleigh. "It affects the young children going in the stores with their parents. They see these things, and they get curious."In nearby 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 cigars.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 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 package."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."E-mail Josh Shaffer at josh.Shaffer(at)newsobserver.com(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)