Roseanne Drug Episode

First off, sorry fellas that these posts have been so sporadic.  You know all that life shit gets in the way.  But the main reason why I’ve been off track lately is because I’m watching all of Roseanne.  As of this post I just finished season 6 which means that I recently saw their drug episode (“A Stash from the Past”).  And it was very different than how other sitcoms I’ve seen handle the subject.

So Roseanne finds some pot and thinks it’s David’s.  The initial blaming is quick and concise by telling him that drugs can screw up your life, it’s illegal, etc.  But right after that Dan tells Roseanne that it’s really hers from 20 years ago that she forgot about.  Dan reminds her that he stashed it when Roseanne was pregnant with Becky.  Now that’s a helluva twist already but they figure that since there’s no one home the two (along with Jackie) actually smoke the shit!  But after they get high D.J. comes back home because he forgot his sleeping bag (he was supposed to be sleeping over a friend’s house) which makes Roseanne realize that she’s a grown up with major responsibilities like raising a kid.  She comes to the conclusion that if something were to happen to D.J. while she was crumpled then she wouldn’t be able to properly come to his aide.  Dan tells Roseanne that they shouldn’t smoke pot anymore because it’s a different time in their lives and it’s not enjoyable like it was when they were younger.

Compare this with the drug episode from Home Improvement (called “What a Drag”):



Brad gets caught with weed and the Taylors grill him.  They say the usual things also like you could get into an accident, it could screw up your life, etc.  Jill eventually tells a story about how she once smoked pot laced with something that put her in the emergency room and she wound up in jail.  Why she went to jail isn’t explained though.  All she says is that somebody “turned her in”.  I guess she must have had the shit on her?  Or maybe she acted crazy while in the hospital?  Otherwise I don’t get it.  Whatever, Jill tells Brad that she was “messed up for a long time after that”.  Again, that’s pretty vague.  Jill also never mentions how old she was when this happened but I think it’s safe to assume that she in her college years because Tim was the one that had to bail her out of jail and they didn’t meet until college (ok, so I’ve seen the show before).

My point is that Roseanne approaches the topic of pot (I don’t think this really applies to other drugs except maybe alcohol) in a fairly reasonable and nonjudgmental way while a lot of other shows don’t.  Home Improvement demonizes it by telling kids that they’re certain to end up in the emergency room or jail or become emotionally and/or mentally fucked up.  Tim and Jill even threaten Brad with drug testing which, in my opinion, says to kids that you can’t go to your folks about this because they aren’t going to handle it in a rational way.  With Roseanne three adults make the decision to try weed again and come to the conclusion on their own that it’s not as fun as it used to be.  They give it a shot and decide not to do it anymore.  I think that’s a more effective way of telling both kids and parents how to deal with drugs.  Think about your responsibilities and what’s important to you in life. 

To be fair I can’t blame Tim Allen for taking the kind of stand that he does on the show because he did go to jail for a couple of years for trafficking cocaine in the late 70’s.  Oh and he also got a DUI in ’97 which was before his drug episode aired.  So drugs have affected his life in a pretty negative way.  But I like how Roseanne handles the topic.  The gist of what the show is saying is that if you’re a kid then you shouldn’t be smoking weed but if you’re an adult then you can make that decision for yourself.