Stoner TV: The Shows That Put Weed on the Small Screen

For most of its history, American television treated weed as a punch line or a warning. Characters got high by accident, learned a lesson by the end of the episode and almost never lit up on camera.

That changed in stages. Premium cable, web series and streaming gave writers room to show cannabis as part of ordinary life, and stoner TV shows went from a single gag episode to whole series built around a dealer, a dispensary or a kitchen full of infused food.

Key takeaways

• Barney Miller's 1976 episode "Hash" turned hash-laced brownies at a police precinct into a sitcom classic.
• That '70s Show used a camera trick known as "the circle," so its teens were never shown smoking.
• Weeds ran for eight seasons on Showtime, with a widowed suburban mother dealing pot.
• High Maintenance began in 2012 as a self-funded web series and became Vimeo's first original series.
• About three-fourths of 800 cannabis consumers in one survey said TV portrays them as stereotypes.
• Netflix's Cooking on High was billed in 2018 as the world's first cannabis cooking show.

Weed and TV, a natural pair

Stoners and television have always gotten along. In a survey of 800 cannabis consumers in legal states, titled "TV and the New Cannabis Consumer," the New York research agency Miner & Co. Studio found that about three-fourths believe television shows portray consumers as stereotypes, The Hollywood Reporter wrote, and the report called on Hollywood to help change perceptions of marijuana users. The stereotype hardly fit the sample, since 86% of respondents worked full-time and 77% earned more than $75,000 a year. The same people described themselves as some of TV's most loyal viewers:

• About 75% said they watch more TV when they consume cannabis.
• Almost 80% said they are more likely to let commercials play.
• Fully 93% said they are more likely to recommend a show they watched high to friends.
• For 88% of them, comedies are funnier when they are high.

Comedy marathons call for a bright, happy strain. Pineapple Express, which shares its name with the 2008 stoner film, is a Hawaiian landrace and Trainwreck cross at 28% THC with a fast cerebral rush and fresh-cut pineapple, tropical fruit and mango flavors. It leans 60% sativa and finishes in 60 to 65 days.

Punch lines and warnings

Before the 1990s, weed mostly appeared on TV as a problem to solve. Movies had set the tone decades earlier with the 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness, and in 1983, Nancy Reagan even guest-starred on Diff'rent Strokes to promote her "Just Say No" message. Public service ads followed the same line, most famously the 1987 frying-egg spot that told viewers, "This is your brain on drugs." Cheech and Chong ruled stoner comedy in movie theaters, but network TV kept its distance. The best-remembered exception came from a police sitcom. In "Hash," a Barney Miller episode that aired on December 30, 1976, Wojo unknowingly brings hash-laced brownies into the precinct. TV Guide later ranked it 77th on its 1997 list of the 100 greatest episodes, and it set up the kind of plot that stoner sitcoms would later build whole seasons on.

The circle and broadcast rules

That '70s Show, which ran on Fox from 1998 to 2006, found a smarter way around the censors. Its Wisconsin teens got high in Eric's basement all the time, yet thanks to a camera trick known as the circle, none of the kids were ever shown smoking. The camera simply spun from face to face around a hazy table while everyone talked stoned philosophy. The A.V. Club called it the frankest and least alarmist look at recreational marijuana that broadcast standards of the time would allow. The trick worked so well that the 2023 spinoff That '90s Show brought the circle back.

The unexamined day is a wasted opportunity. Reflect on what you did, what you learned, and how you can improve.

John Dewey

Cable and the web get bolder

Premium cable could go further. Weeds premiered on Showtime in 2005 and ran for eight seasons, following Nancy Botwin, a widowed mother who starts dealing pot to support her sons in the suburbs. Created by Jenji Kohan, who later made Orange Is the New Black, it was one of the first weed TV shows to put cannabis at the center of every episode, years before most states allowed medical use, and Mary-Louise Parker won a Golden Globe for the lead role in 2006. Comedy Central's Broad City, which Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson started as a web series in 2009, ran on TV from 2014 to 2019 and made getting high part of two friends' everyday chaos in New York. Workaholics, on the same network from 2011 to 2017, built a cult following around three office slackers who smoked between shifts.

High Maintenance started even smaller. Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair, then a married couple, used their own money to create the series in 2012, shooting in friends' apartments, and it became Vimeo's first original series before HBO picked it up for four seasons, from 2016 to 2020. Sinclair plays the Guy, a nameless dealer who bikes weed to customers across New York, and each episode follows the people on his route more than the weed itself. That focus made it one of the most humane shows about weed ever made.

Stoner TV, decade by decade

A few shows stand out as turning points, each one pushing the subject a little further into the open:

The pattern is clear in hindsight. Each new outlet, from premium cable to the web to streaming, gave writers fewer rules and more room, and weed moved from the punch line to the premise.

Streaming, sitcoms and cooking shows

Streaming opened the door to whole formats built on weed. Netflix's Disjointed cast Kathy Bates as the owner of a Los Angeles dispensary in a Chuck Lorre sitcom that ran 20 episodes across 2017 and 2018 before its cancellation. Animation had already joined in, from South Park's stoned talking towel, Towelie, to Family Guy's 2009 episode "420," in which Brian campaigns to legalize marijuana.

Food TV followed. Cooking on High premiered on Netflix in June 2018, billed as the world's first ever cannabis cooking show, with comedians Ngaio Bealum and Josh Leyva hosting chefs who made infused dishes for celebrity judges, although Viceland's Bong Appétit had already turned infused dinners into a series in 2016. For the dessert round at home, we like Ice Cream Cake, a Gelato #33 and Wedding Cake cross at 27% THC that finishes in 55 to 65 days, with a creamy vanilla flavor and deeply relaxing, physically soothing effects that suit a long night on the couch.

Where to start a binge

Streaming catalogs change often, so it pays to search before settling in. The best stoner shows depend on the mood, and each of these works for a different kind of night:

• Barney Miller's "Hash" works as a short history lesson in one episode.
• That '70s Show suits a light rewatch, with eight seasons of basement circles.
• Weeds works for viewers who like dark comedy with a crime plot.
• Broad City is the most joyful stoner comedy of the bunch.
• High Maintenance offers short, humane stories, one customer at a time.
• Disjointed is a quick, silly binge at a single season.
• Cooking on High makes an easy snack-break watch.

Pass the remote

Stoner TV shows moved from a single hash brownie episode in 1976 to smoke-free circles in the late 1990s, then to Weeds, High Maintenance and Netflix's infused cooking show. Each step brought weed a little closer to ordinary life on screen. Viewers who consume still say TV leans on stereotypes, so the next great show may be the one that treats its stoners like everyone else.

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