Policing banned sex enhancers in the streets of Harare

Sex enhancers have a special place in the policing of fake drugs. Warnings against fake Viagra, for instance, pepper public health announcements and policy documents. In line with this global concern, in 2013, Zimbabwe banned over-the-counter sales of sex enhancers. In a context of severe economic crisis, a street trade in sex enhancers nonetheless continued. Here I explore this street-level trade and the forms of policing that have emerged around the ban: among traders, among the public, and among the police themselves. I argue that Zimbabwe's attempts to constrain the circulation of fakes created a productive market where various players stepped into policing both the ban as well as this newly illegal trade and profited by doing so.