Weed in TV series

Cannabis is everywhere, and so is its culture. As marijuana is gradually legalized around the world, the subject is becoming less taboo. This presents an opportunity for Hollywood (as well as British and French) industries to take a closer look at the substance. Here is a non-exhaustive list of TV series that deal with ganja.

1) Weeds

I couldn't start this ranking without mentioning from THE series on the topic of cannabis. Even though the series is starting to feel a little dated (it ended in 2012), *Weeds* centers on a mother, Nancy Botwin, who is raising her two children alone in a California suburb and is forced to deal cannabis after her husband’s tragic death. We get a glimpse into the daily life of a woman who, against her will, becomes a budding drug dealer, with plenty of twists and turns and humor.

Recommended Reading: Weeds

2) Californication

This series follows the daily life of Hank Moody, a once-successful writer who, overnight, finds himself alone and depressed, struggling with writer’s block. It features the «cliché» of a midlife crisis: plenty of alcohol, sex, and weed. A funny and off-the-wall series.

3) Skins

The British series *100%: Teen, Party, and Drugs*. In this teen series, illicit substances are everywhere. Marijuana, cocaine, MDMA… everything is portrayed as commonplace. This series presents a different view of marijuana than the two previous series. It focuses on drug use among teenagers: the first joint, fun, necessity, testing one’s limits… Cannabis is presented as an escape to forget the problems teenagers face (family issues, relationship problems, high school…). The characters’ lives revolve around drugs, which set the pace for their lifestyle.

4) Misfits

Another British series set in the world of young people who use illegal drugs. Misfits introduces five teenagers (Nathan, Curtis, Kelly, Simon, and Alisha) sentenced to community service. On their first day of community service, a storm breaks out, lightning strikes the young offenders, and grants them superpowers. Beyond these “X-Men in the making,” the series deals extensively with recreational drug use and drug dealing (Curtis was a dealer before he got caught).

5) Cannabis

"Cannabis" is a six-episode miniseries that aired on Arte. It focuses on the trafficking of hashish between Morocco, the hub of Marbella, and the Paris suburbs.

Recommended reading: «Cannabis,» the new series from Arte

6) South Park

South Park is the best animated series of all time. It follows the daily lives of four 8-year-old kids (Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman) in a small town in Colorado, near the Rocky Mountains, who get caught up in all sorts of zany adventures. The show features plenty of satire—particularly of American consumer culture, current events, and moral lessons—all delivered in a sarcastic, zany, parodic, and above all, funny style. When it comes to cannabis, two episodes stand out:

• Servietsky (Season 5) : Servietsky is a smart towel created by aliens. But one day, he discovers cannabis and becomes addicted to it. In this episode, not two minutes go by without Servietsky holding a joint in his hand and/or being high, uttering his famous line, «Wanna smoke a joint?» He believes that cannabis will boost his intellectual abilities, when in fact the opposite is true. It’s a group of kids who end up forbidding the towel from smoking cannabis. This is one of the best episodes of the series, where cannabis is treated with irony, humor, and a focus on prevention.

• Medicinal Fried Chicken (Season 14): This episode is also very interesting because it was released in 2010, the year the state of Colorado legalized medical cannabis. In it, we see Randy, Stan’s father, discover that the town’s KFC has been replaced by a medical cannabis dispensary. Since it’s illegal without a prescription, he fakes testicular cancer to get his hands on some. This episode envisions a decline in fast food and dietary problems in the United States, replaced by the increasingly widespread legalization of medical cannabis. 

7) That ’70s Show

*That ’70s Show* follows the daily lives of six teenagers in Point Place, Wisconsin, in the 1970s. The characters are often shown sitting in a circle, with the camera panning from one to the next as they talk. Back when the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin ruled the music scene, these wild high schoolers would hang out in their basements, where you can see incense filling the room with smoke—a clear hint that they’re rolling and smoking big joints. Generally speaking, when the characters are bored, they smoke, and when they’re sad, they smoke, too.

The best moment of the series: When Kelson (played by Ashton Kutcher) tries to figure out if he’s the scapegoat of his training group. He breaks into a police station and finds some weed there. He doesn’t hesitate to smoke a joint right inside the station. This series portrays cannabis as an act of defiance at a time when prohibition was still very much in effect in the United States.

8) How I Met Your Mother

«How I Met Your Mother» centers on a character named Ted, who explains to his children how he met their mother. Over the course of nine seasons, we see flashbacks ranging from their first meeting to their wedding. Although cannabis is treated with a great deal of detachment in the series, it’s always depicted as a sandwich (the narrator didn’t want to shock his children, which gives the show a preventive message about weed for younger viewers). The most representative episode is in Season 7, during a concert, when the two protagonists, Ted and Marshall, “eat a sandwich” and are overcome by fits of laughter, munchies, severe paranoia, and extreme confusion.

9) Disjointed

Netflix is currently producing a series about a cannabis dispensary, which will premiere on August 25. Titled Disjointed, it will focus on Ruth, a medical cannabis business owner in Los Angeles.

Mehdi Bautier