Smokable painkillers?

These days, almost every painkiller boasts that it can relieve your pain the fastest. But what if instead of waiting 15 or 20 minutes for relief, you could have it in seconds?

A new "smokable" painkiller from Alexza Pharmaceuticals Inc might just make that a possibility. They're developing drugs that can pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream -- much like nicotine in cigarettes.

The plan is to create an inhaler that looks like a small hip flask, which patients would be able to carry around in their pocket book. Inside the inhaler would be a battery-operated package that heats up a small amount of the drug in liquid form, which would subsequently produce a vapor that the patient could suck into his or her lungs.

Results of a mid-stage clinical trial of the company's migraine drug will be available by the end of March. However, consumers most likely won't have access to the product until at least 2010.