Lust In The Time Of Viagra

Since sildenafil citrate entered the bedroom, the language has altered drastically. It must be the fastest generification of a concept with all its extensions. It took xerox and frigidaire decades to enter the dictionary, but the viagraisation of the vocabulary has come at warp speed. Those little blue diamonds are definitely the erectilely-challengeds' best friends. Lust has reared its oh so irresistible head in old age homes and in the hearts and bodies of prostate patients. It's also fast given rise to a new genre of jokes.

No one to my knowledge has thus far done a basic price-demand study of Viagra so I'm breaking new ground here. This empirically supports Viennese doctor Sigmund Freud's contention that the libido often takes primacy over the survival instinct and it almost always takes precedence over the desire to achieve an altered state of consciousness.

 

Price-demand elasticity is one of those basic economic concepts applied every time the price of onions skyrockets. For most items, demand is inversely elastic. That is, if price increases (decreases), the demand decreases (increases). For snob-value items such as autographed Marilyn Monroe buff calendars or Gucci dog-collars, demand can actually increase along with price. The extent to which goods are necessary and the extent to which substitutes are available influences primary elasticity.

The UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) cites several price-elasticity studies that have been done on narcotic and psychotropic drugs that are designed primarily to cater to the natural urge to achieve altered states of consciousness. A priori, it's natural to assume that demand would be least elastic for habit-forming drugs. That is, heroin, cocaine and alcohol would find almost the same number of buyers at higher prices whereas marijuana would find fewer customers if prices rose.

That turned out to be wrong _ so wrong that the UNDCP now argues that addiction is not nearly as compelling as was once thought. At higher prices, hard-drug users find cheaper substitutes - cocaine-users invented crack, for example -- or cut back on consumption. Users of cannabis, which is indubitably a less addictive drug, are more inelastic. They are prepared to buy the same quantities at higher prices. The modification to the original argument probably comes about since cannabis users spend smaller parts of their income on the weed. Of course, elasticity also varies over price range and at higher prices the elasticity of any drug rises.

According to the US National Bureau of Economic Research, the current elasticity of heroin, cocaine and cannabis is around -0.9, -0.55 and -0.06 respectively at 1997 average street rates. With heroin, that translates into a 0.9 per cent reduction in demand for the same rise in price.

Current US street prices of heroin, cocaine, and cannabis are around $290, $110 and $1 a gram respectively. Obviously cannabis impacts disposable income much less, hence the elasticity. Cocaine users have moved down to crack at $15 a gram while many heroin users have moved to cheaper pharmacological substitutes.

Compare those prices with the official price of Viagra at $ 2000 a gram extrapolating up from $10 for a 5 milligram tablet. It's being bootlegged for three times that in Mumbai and reportedly 15 times that in West Asia. One tablet gives you an hour so you are talking possibly $20 for a Viagra-assisted night. The street rates for an US sex-worker is approximately half that.

Yet despite the awesome prices, demand has barely been tapped as the queues of sexy senior citizens at US dispensaries testifies. Obviously a libido-enhancing substance is more price-inelastic than any mind or mood -altering substance could hope to be.