2 Comments
User's avatar
Babu's avatar

Your comments and questioning the provenance is similar to my experience of multiple products in the small countries of central Africa. Is it a cheaper product dressed up to try to look like the real deal? Glad your experienced taste-test revealed it is likely not a fake.

I have had more concern for potential harm from generic drugs that I prescribe that are far cheaper than their cousins in Europe and especially, the US. I am becoming more convinced that it's the horrendous level of bureaucratic red tape that adds enormously to the cost of drugs. Easily 1000% in many cases. Yes, a one with three zeros.... or more.

The effectiveness of drugs is the main route of verification that I have immediately available. There's a lot of money to be made on either side: fake drugs being sold at roughly $1 per 100 tablets or less would seem to beg the question of authenticity. And yet the stuff of drug ingredients are, I think, massively cheap to produce on large scale, particularly when labor costs are 1000% less than in Ulaya (Sw-DRC word for the West), So let's all benefit from the reality and boost the economy by purchasing effective products at lower cost!

However, NOT advocating that for liquor ;)

Expand full comment
Simeon Sanchez's avatar

Right, it becomes apparent when traveling that the world is made up of various market bubbles that are mutually isolated. Another example: You can't get some aftermarket parts for Honda motorcycles in Cambodia. It can't be because logistics are totally crap: they import stuff from all over the world. Then you notice them gluing old air hoses back together with bathroom caulking and reselling them at triple their factory-fresh price in Japan. It all evens out though, because you can get antimicrobials in Siem Reap for pocket change that would cost a week's wages in the States. If only we could combine all of the best of these bubbles . . .

Expand full comment