Authorities are now cracking down on hardened (sorry, not sorry) criminals peddling sex enhancement pills, condoms, and lube in the weeks leading up to the Thingyan holiday, according to the Yangon Police Force’s Facebook page.
Falling afoul of this crackdown yesterday was Maung Maung Oo from Yangon’s Kamaryut township, who was arrested for illegally selling pills and lube during a routine neighborhood patrol.
Police confiscated the following items in his possession: Stud 100 sexual enhancement pills; Femi Fly, a bottle of promised liquid sexual enhancement; Herb Viagra; an unnamed lubricant; and an OPPO phone. We’re 99% sure the phone had nothing to do with getting off.
Maung Maung Oo has company. According to the Yangon Police Force, there have been 12 similar arrests between March 13-April 3 in which sellers of sex enhancement pills were busted across Yangon.
For those wondering, while condoms and lube are not illegal in Myanmar — and commonly sold in drug stores and supermarkets — sexual enhancement pills are on the banned list of substances in the National Medicine Act.
In previous years, police and health department officials have cracked down on the sale of “sex pills” before and during the yearly Thingyan festival that marks the Burmese New Year and is famous for its elaborate water fights.
Police efforts have included drop-in checks on pharmacies conducted by hundreds of officers deployed to “prevent illicit activities.”
In a counterintuitive — OK, just plain bizarre — move in 2015 that ignored even basic sexual health policy principles, Myanmar police banned contraceptive pills and even condoms in pharmacies for a month in an effort to “reduce sexual crime,” even going so far as to arrest shop owners who sold the pill.
In recent decades, Thingyan celebrations have become synonymous with blaring music, drunken partying and extravagant spending on massive stages where Myanmar’s rich and famous live it up in private and VIP parties.
Whether or not the same level of revelry can be maintained without the help of alleged pleasure peddlers like Maung Maung Oo remains to be seen.
