At the risk of being labelled a Gen-W (W being for Woodstock), I seem to remember people using toilet paper rolls in a pinch to smoke, uh, various things. Perhaps they do it differently these days, but I also remember such "pipes" as having a hole cut out of the top and perforated aluminum foil inserted to make the "bowl". Unless the toilet paper roll looked like that, I'd say it was just there to hide a syringe or to keep it from poking through.
Also, did I read this right and was the syringe inside the cardboard tube and the tube inside the Gatorade bottle? The bottle is described as being 3/4 full, IIRC. Wouldn't that have made the cardboard tube soggy? Please, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong; I'm having puter problems tonight and don't want to go looking for the doc. TIA.
Yes, they were soggy/wet. There were two rolls. Because they were disposed of though, I didn't take that to mean they could not have possibly been used as pipes at an earlier time.