Why everyone seems to be smoking weed on television these days

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Television today is all about streaming services that are pushing out content faster than people can watch it. And that means  there are a lot of great shows at your fingertips that aren’t held back by traditional cable regulations around language, nudity and “mature themes.” Some streaming services have adopted new policies.

Netflix announced last summer that in all future shows aimed at younger audiences there will be no smoking or e-cigarettes unless it’s historically or factually accurate. What all this means is, many characters currently on TV can smoke weed with wild abandon — and they’re doing it.

Broad City (2014-19, Comedy Central)

Starring Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, these two gals get up to a lot of crazy stuff in Broad City, a show that follows the two friends and their life in New York City. The two are often seen on-screen smoking weed and getting high and subsequently getting into trouble (like the show’s second episode when Illana Glazer’s character tries to buy weed by herself and ends up getting crazy high). Although the two are lighting up on camera, they’re not smoking real weed. In a March 2016 interview with Andy Cohen, Glazer revealed that the weed they smoke is fake. “It’s harsher than weed, just like the fake tobacco is kinda harsher,” she said, adding they can’t do real pot on set. Jacobson added the “herbal stuff” they smoke on camera hurts her throat.

That ’70s Show (1998-2006, 20th Century Fox)

We’d be foolish not to give a mention to That ’70s Show, where teenage BFFs got high literally all the time. Can we blame them? It was the ’70s. What else was there to do? We’re all perhaps a little too familiar with the show’s classic “circle” shot: the characters are sitting around a table in Eric’s basement with smoke streaming through the background, and the camera pans between them all, and they’re spewing blather. At one point, the character of Hyde even went to jail for marijuana possession in an episode titled “Reefer Madness.”

Weeds (2005-12, SHOWTIME)

It’s literally in the name. Weeds was a popular TV show centering on a suburban mom who starts dealing marijuana after the death of her husband so she can keep living the kind of lifestyle she’s used to. Soon after she starts dealing, she finds out her whole neighbourhood is totally hooked on the high. And that’s the show. Of course, some wild things happen, like when the mom/drug dealer starts dating someone from the DEA, when a dog bites off someone’s toes or when the mom/drug dealer starts to recruit a gang for protection. Fans would agree the show lost its way after the third season.

Grace and Frankie (2015 – present, Netflix)

If you’re not watching Grace and Frankie, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life. Starring mega-talents Jane Fonda (Grace) and Lily Tomlin (Frankie), the two friends find themselves living together after their husbands divorce them so that they can finally come out of the closet and declare their love. While Fonda’s character is straight-laced and uptight, Tomlin’s character is free-spirited and smoking weed whenever she gets the chance — usually with the daughters of her on-screen BFF. In a hilarious episode in season 5, Frankie gets high with Robert (Martin Sheen, who play’s Fonda’s ex) after they eat marijuana edibles, and the two have a bonding moment while eating Chinese food and wearing hats.

Workaholics (2011-17, Comedy Central)

Though it’s not every episode where the crew of work friends are getting high, the show does talk about cannabis, and sometimes ends with the group unwinding on the roof for a smoke sesh. Adam DeVine, co-creator and star of the show, revealed that they did actually smoke real weed up on that roof. The show was cancelled out of the blue in 2017, and the last episode featured an homage to the friends’ most cherished pastime: lighting up. The group is running low on their stash, so they create an insane pipe that will conserve the smoke so that they can still get high.

Arrested Development (2003-06 Fox, 2013 – present, Netflix)

Focusing on the Bluths, a rich family who have fallen on hard times and are seriously dysfunctional, Arrested Development isn’t all about cannabis, but is sometimes. The character of Oscar Bluth (played by Jeffrey Tambor) is the biggest smoker in the family. Though season one does deal with teaching Michael (Jason Bateman) about smoking pot, it’s in season three that we find a hilarious marijuana moment. In episode 7, Buster’s (Tony Hale) pet turtle overdoses on some of Oscar’s pot after he makes a home for the little guy inside Oscar’s old stash box, and the turtle dies. Ironically, in an earlier episode of the show, one character takes a strain called Afternoon Deelite, and the logo features a stoned turtle. Everything goes full-circle.

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