Carnal Desires

By Irfan Bukhari – 

Drugs enhancing sexual powers are being sold like hotcakes

In small towns and big urban centers, quacks promising to increase male potency and offering quick cure for sexual dysfunction abound. At medical store counters, the hikmat outlets and seedy quack’s clinics, such products outsell everything else – painkillers and tranquilizers included. You guessed it: the stuff that promises to enhance the libido or treats sexual dysfunction.

The countrywide wall-chalking by quacks and hakeems regarding medicines for enhanced libido and potency not only embarrass common people but also create a perception as if every man is suffering from sexual dysfunction in the country.

Tibb Younani (herbal medication) and Ayurvedic (the age-old sub-continental herbal method) is practiced by registered and unregistered self-proclaimed hakeems across the country. To enhance libido, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation etc., one finds innumerable products being dished out to unsuspecting but desperate people as treatment to their real or perceived ailments. It’s pretty much a free for all, with no rules and standards set by either the National Council for Tibb or government.

For centuries, hakeems have used various substances – from natural fruits, vegetables and herbs to crushed gold, silver and precious and semi-precious stones, diamonds, pearls, emeralds and rubies included- known as ‘kushtas.’ These ‘kushtas’, as some of the more potent substance is called in local parlance, come at a steep price. But to obtain stuff that promises to transform their sexual lives, desperate patients pay sizable amounts – even up to Rs 200,000 for the entire course.

The preparation and use of kushtas is an ancient concept of reduction of the particle size of metals/stones and making them a little reactive, so as to catalyze their pharmacological properties. This method involves mainly three steps: purification of metal to haul out physical impurities, wet grinding for reduction of particle size and incineration for further reduction in particle size under high temperature.

Sometimes quacks, out of either recklessness or lack of skill, or both, cause irretrievable harm to the consumer, and deaths are known to have occurred because of the poison administered to them in the name of medicine. It happens because these kushtas are prepared of substances either poisonous or metals with dangerous properties like arsenic, mercury and copper. Some other dangerous herbs like Nux Vomica are also used by untrained quacks in makeshift labs without properly treating them as per standards set by Tibb Unani Pharmacopeia.

The sex medicines are not only prepared and sold by registered hakeems and Tibb Unani (Oriental Medicine) pharmacies but it has become a tradition in the country that thousands of laymen claim to have knowledge and skill of preparing ‘marvelous’ herbal formula for impotence and market their products in their respective communities.

There have been cases in which people running barber shops sell products for erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. The medicines prepared by such quacks are mostly composed of opium in raw form. Since it delays ejaculation, it appeases ignorant pleasure seekers. Opium not only makes users its addict but also casts very detrimental side effects on human body and can cause paralysis. These unqualified sex practitioners learn the ‘science’ from the countless books written by hakeems on sex.

Most qualified hakeems or unqualified quacks also market products called tillas (massage oils) for applying on male genitals to ‘invigorate’ them. The simpletons are told that the fat of lion, leopard, bear, salamander as well as other precious herbal or animal substances like saffron, moschus and ambergris are used to prepare them.

The price of one little vial ranges between Rs 100 to Rs 25,000, which varies according to claims of hakeems regarding their components. Every other ‘tibb pharmacy’ is openly marketing ‘Special Wedding Course’ with claims that the course will banish all damage done by sexual excesses in youth. The outlets of hakeems having lions in cages outside the so-called medical facilities can be seen at Lahore’s Lohari Gate.

Background discussions with hakeems revealed that since the invention of Sildenafil Citrate (salt of Viagra), most herbal pharmaceutical companies and practicing hakeems simply use the cheap salt smuggled from China to Pakistan through various channels – sparing them the cumbersome and expensive process of preparing and dispensing kushtas.

The formulation and marketing of Viagra in 1998 broke the monopoly of hakeems in the country as a powerful and infallible sexual dysfunction drug, making the hakeem’s yarn with regard to kushtas of diamond and gold irrelevant. The drug, with clinically verified results, was amazing, which surpassed all kushtas and laboobs (semi-liquid mixture of herbs and kushtas of metals and gemstones) in Pakistani market.

As the branded Viagra was and still is expensive, smuggling of various brands having Sildenafil Citrate salt, like Penagra, Kamagra etc., started from neighboring India. Even hakeems and homeopathic doctors started giving their patients Sildenafil Citrate in capsules in disguise of herbal and homeopathic formulations and the practice is still going on without any control. Though Viagra and Cialis are the prescription medicines meant to treat sexual dysfunction in above 50 persons, the youth is also becoming addict for additional amusement.

The use of internet and social media has made the marketing of sex drugs easier and cheap. You just click the words ‘sex medicines in Pakistan’ and find hundreds of links to buy any product for erectile dysfunction, delaying ejaculation, size enlargement. The products are now even delivered at customers’ doorstep. The medicines like Xpertman, VigRX, Vimax, ExtenZe, Thrill-MAX, VegaXL, Herbal Viagra, Largo, Jaguar Power, Developpe Sex Cream, Toko-D-3 Sex Delay Cream, Yong gang are always available in stock with their marketers on internet.

Like all other medicinal systems, homeopathy too has number of drugs to enhance libido, both in men and women. Though classical homeopathy believes in holistic approach of treating sick subjects according to totality of their symptoms but for the last many years combinations drugs are being marketed across the country by various registered and fake pharmaceutical companies with no check on the latter from the National Council for Homeopathy and the Ministry of National Regulations and Services.

As selling aphrodisiacs bring huge dividends, no homoeo pharma can think of neglecting the lure of marketing medicines for enhancing libido, treating erectile dysfunction etc. Under standard homeopathic practice, medicines like Damiana, Selenium, Caladium, Ginseng, Phosphoricum Acidum, Muira Pauma, Agnus Castus, Lycopodium, Yohimbinum are employed to treat impotence and other related symptoms.

Most of the locally made homeopathic aphrodisiacs contain large proportions of Yohimbinum which are counter-productive in large doses and may also prove fatal for people having cardiac diseases and essential hypertension.
Talking to Pique, Dr. Nasir Chaudhry, former chairman NCH who is now heading council’s examining body said: “All patents which are a mixture of homeopathic medicines should be banned as they are against the principles and spirit of homeopathy. Even illiterate persons have set up homoeopathic pharmacies in their homes with no check by the authorities.”

The issue of registering ‘Viagra’ in the country has not been decided yet by the Ministry of National Regulations and Services due to sensitivities attached with the product. Pfizer’s 20-year copyright has expired in Pakistan but the ministry is not giving registration for the production of the product with Sildenafil Citrate to any local pharmaceutical company.

The Ministry of National Regulation and Services discussed the issue last in detail in the 235th meeting of Drug Registration Board held on September 18, 2012. However, the Board deferred the matter for policy decision.
All sex medicines on offer are male specific – save one: Spanish Gold Fly. On internet and social media it is being marketed as a female sex medicine ‘making efficiency within five minutes and quickly reaching climax.’

Spanish Fly, or Cantharides, is extracted from dried beetle dung. Reported sexual excitement after taking Spanish Fly stems from its ability to irritate the urogenital tract, causing a rush of blood to the genital area. The downside is: Spanish fly is a poison that burns the mouth and throat, and can cause urinary infections, scarring of the urethra and, in some rare cases, death.