Leave it to a major pharmaceutical company to completely forget about the drug war. From Brandweek Magazine:

NEW YORK -- Last year, Pfizer paid Sanofi-Aventis $1.4 billion for Exubera, a new inhaled insulin product for diabetics that Pfizer forecast would produce $2 billion in sales every year.

What Pfizer got for its cash was a device that looks a lot like a marijuana bong—and a brand that analysts, doctors, drug sales reps and some patients believe is a struggle to sell because it is so inconvenient to use.

Yeah I can see it now: a diabetes sufferer, visibly disoriented from low blood sugar, fumbles with an awkward tubular device in a parking lot before huffing its fumes and breathing a sigh of relief. It's actually not that inconvenient…unless you get detained and searched by police in the middle of a medical emergency.

[Diabetes blogger Amy Tenderich] noticed a Pfizer instructional video on the Exubera Web site. It shows a man huffing on his Exubera tube at a restaurant table. The man “must live in a city as tolerant or as jaded as San Francisco or New York because not one patron even glanced over as he cocked and sucked on his medicinal bong,” she wrote. Exubera “really is as bad as it looks in the pictures.”

On the other hand, Pfizer could contact law-enforcement agencies across the country and convince them not to take action when they see people sucking on small bong-like devices. Surely that would solve the problem.

In fact, that would solve all sorts of problems.

Phil wrote me this morning that he was heading out to the Bolivian city of Cochabamba and the Chapare region of which it is part. The Chapare is one of the major coca-growing regions in the country. It is unclear whether he will be able to post to the blog today -- Phil will be out in the fields -- or if that will have to wait until he returns to La Paz. The Andean Information Network is an organization that monitors and reports on developments in Bolivia in general and the Chapare in particular, and they are helping Phil with this leg of his trip. I have met current and past AIN staff during their not-infrequent visits to Washington. The AIN web site is a great resource for people wanting to learn more about the relevant issues as well as keep up with the latest developments. Among other things, I just noticed that they have published a curriculum to help schoolteachers deal with US and Andean drug control issues in their courses. Of course the site discusses the state of the coca issue in the administration of Bolivian cocalero leader turned president Evo Morales.

pictures from La Paz, Bolivia: Calle Linares pedestrian mall, with Coca Museum sign (Click the "read full post" link or the title link for more pictures if you don't already seen them.)