In Tokyo, Viagra Is One Hot Commodity
By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 18, 1998; Page A01
TOKYO-Viagra, which has cheered impotent men around the world, is
rescuing the Japanese netherworld of porn shops and crime gangs. The
American anti-impotence drug, which has not been approved for sale in
Japan, has become the hottest product in Japan's sex industry, which has
suffered severely from the nation's economic recession.
Throughout places like Tokyo's famous red-light district, Kabuki-cho,
customers are spending millions of dollars on a flood of Viagra coming into
Japan. A bottle of 30 pills is selling for $1,000 or more, and single doses
delivered by a kimono-clad hostess can fetch $300 in the dimly lighted
back alleys of Kabuki-cho, full of adult shops such as Pinky House and
Super Exciting Pub UCLA.
Koichu Tonda, dressed in a shiny black suit with his straight hair stylishly
long, sat on a bar stool in a porn shop called Netherland, surrounded by
liquor and lingerie and leather. Tonda recently returned from Hong Kong
where, he said, he bought 10,000 bottles of Viagra from a Chinese crime
gang. Those pills, which he said were purchased for $200,000 in Hong
Kong, are worth $10 million or more on the streets of Tokyo, where
peddlers can't keep up with the demand.
Tonda said he is just one of countless "import agents" bringing in the little
blue pills. He and the owners of shops such as Netherland insist they don't
actually sell the drug -- they simply bring buyers and sellers together. When
pressed, those who have fistfuls of Viagra are vague about who is selling
the pills; selling them is a criminal offense here.
Law enforcement agencies had no comment on the Viagra trade and have
done nothing obvious to stop it. Porn shop owners say so much Viagra is
coming into the country in luggage and express mail packages that the
government can't possibly slow the supply significantly. And as the supply
increases, demand is skyrocketing in the darkest little corners of society,
where the law has never been much of a deterrent to making millions of
dollars from human desire.
"Viagra has taken the edge off the recession," said Jun Kitani, Netherland's
owner. "Men are rushing out to get it."
Tsurumitsu Nanjo, 58, a Tokyo business consultant, said he hadn't had sex
for eight years before he paid "an acquaintance" $80 for two pills. In
unprintable language describing his great enthusiasm for Viagra's powers,
Nanjo explained how he immediately ran out to a Turkish bath, engaged a
prostitute and shared his enthusiasm with her.
"It was such a great joy after eight years," he said.
From Andorra to Egypt, countries across the globe are experiencing
Viagra booms, with much of the selling taking place on the black market.
Legal sales in the United States are expected to top $1 billion in the first
year, and since Viagra went on sale in April, American doctors have
written more than 2.7 million prescriptions. But Japan may be the only
place where it has also spawned a renaissance in poetry. Newspapers here
have been printing original haiku written by Viagra converts. One
drug-chuffed poet wrote, "Impotence is cleared! Next is to have my hair
back," and another offered, "Viagra, my separated wife came back to me."
Sports and adult newspapers and magazines are filled with ads for Viagra,
and travel agents are doing good business sending Japanese men to Hawaii
or Los Angeles on Viagra tours that include airfare, a doctor's visit and the
cost of the prescription. Hundreds of "import agents" are putting up fliers,
mostly in bars and places like Kabuki-cho, advertising their Viagra
connections.
Despite the demand, Japan may wind up being the last place on the planet
where Viagra is available legally. The Japanese government is notoriously
slow at approving new medicines, and such American favorites as the birth
control pill, the antidepressant drug Prozac and hair-loss drug Rogaine are
all banned in Japan -- despite increasing demand for them.
However, Japan does not ban people from obtaining prescription drugs
overseas and bringing them to Japan, provided they are for personal use.
A lucrative mail-order business, much of it conducted over the Internet,
arranges all kinds of foreign prescription drugs to be delivered to Japanese
residents. But there has never been anything like the Viagra craze.
Koichi Ishikawa, a Japanese physician who lives in Los Angeles, visited
Tokyo recently and set up office hours in an expensive downtown hotel.
More than 200 patients came to see him, all asking that he mail them a
Viagra prescription when he returned to the United States. Ishikawa, who
is licensed to practice in both countries, said several other doctors in Los
Angeles are also being besieged by such requests.
"The Japanese government should approve the drug as soon as possible to
stop this crazy situation," the doctor said.
"We are quite aware of the popularity and eagerness of the patients who
want this medicine," said Norimasa Harada, a spokesman for Pfizer
Pharmaceuticals Inc., the Japanese subsidiary of the U.S. company that
produces Viagra. Japan requires a lengthy testing period of new drugs, and
while as many as 50 additional countries may approve Viagra this year,
there is no sign that Japan will move quickly to legalize it.
The gangsters hope not. Japan's yakuza organized crime gangs are filling
the void, selling Viagra for up to $300 a pill, more than 10 times what
Ishikawa charges. Ishikawa said he has been threatened by yakuza thugs
who apparently believe he is cutting into their turf in the Viagra trade.
For several years, Ishikawa has traveled to Japan to see patients looking
for Prozac or other drugs to treat Parkinson's disease, depression or
stroke. But now it's all about Viagra. His Internet home page on Viagra
has had 5,800 hits in the past two months, and his Los Angeles office has
received more than 1,000 calls from Viagra-seekers in Japan.
"For a lot of these people, they have serious problems and they don't care
about how much money it takes," Ishikawa said. He said one patient was a
Japanese doctor suffering from cancer who said Viagra was his only
chance to improve his sex life.
"I was surprised how openly the patients talked about sex. It has been a
taboo subject in Japan," Ishikawa said. "But some of them said their wives
ordered them to come."
A 50-year-old company president from Osaka, who asked not to be
identified, said he went to Ishikawa's office in Los Angeles and came away
with 60 Viagra pills. Not counting the airfare, because he was in town on
business anyway, he paid $150 for the consultation and $1,300 for the
pills.
He said the pills have rekindled sexual relations with his wife, "after a long
absence."
"It worked perfectly, and now I'm hooked on it," he said. "It's really
ridiculous that this is not allowed in Japan."
Special correspondent Shigehiko Togo contributed to this report.
c Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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