Men Around the Globe Lust After Viagra

MEXICO CITY — It is a headache for world health officials, a boon for black markets from Mexico to Egypt and the hottest idea since Charles Atlas promised to rescue skinny wretches who got sand kicked in their face.

What else? Viagra.

From the slums of Cairo to fashionable villas in Milan, the world has gone gaga over the anti-impotence pill. Worried authorities are cautioning that Viagra can help those with real medical needs but won't produce instant Don Juans. That, though, hasn't stopped men around the globe from beseeching doctors for a prescription, paying up to $800 a bottle on the black market and even flying across the Atlantic to get the drug.

"All day long, it's 'Viagra, Viagra,' " said Juana Rivera, a pharmacy employee in Ciudad Juarez, across the U.S.-Mexican border from El Paso. The flood of clients seeking the drug, she said, suggests a serious problem out there. "Perhaps the statistics on impotence are too low."

Viagra, with runaway demand in the United States, still hasn't arrived in much of the world. The hype has, however. That is driving thousands to seek the pills, legally--or otherwise.

In Mexico, the frenzy over "the pleasure pill" has been so intense that, when two newspapers recently organized an online "chat" about Viagra, 200 people responded in one hour. "If I take it, will I become Superman?" one demanded to know.

Men have stampeded to pharmacies, even though the drug will not legally be available here for several weeks.

Maria Beatriz Vega, manager of a small drugstore in Mexico City's sprawling Tepito contraband market, claims 500 people a day request the pill. The men, however, don't seem to be focusing on impotence, she says. They are focusing on sexual marathons.

"The more the Mexican man has, the more he wants," Vega explained, referring to the traditional macho culture. "Viagra is trendy," she said, adding swiftly, "But we don't have it."

But in another stand in the crowded market, a vendor was happy to discreetly slip a bottle of "Viagra" to a customer. The price: 350 pesos--about $42--for 50 pills. The bottle was clearly a fake, with a smudged, mimeographed label. When the would-be client identified herself as a reporter, the vendor fled.

Illegal sales are thriving in other areas too. In Taiwan, men are reportedly paying up to $60 a pill on the black market. In Turkey, the price is $520 to $800 a bottle, according to press reports.