Emerald at the Emmys: Sarah Silverman Pulls Out Her Vape Pen and Takes Home a Statue for Writing

UPDATE 9/19: When Sharon Osbourne asked her to show her purse contents to 2019 Emmy watchers,  Silverman said, "Funny, I got in trouble a few years ago; now it's legal" as she showed she had two joints taped to the top (to keep them from getting smushed) plus a vape ("for emergiencies"). "I know people always think of me as a stoner, but I really just take a puff," Silverman said. "What's wrong with that, people?" a supportive Osbourne said, to which Sarah replied, "Absolutely nothing." 

Silverman lost in her Emmy category (for the now-cancelled Hulu series "I Love America") to the mostly mediocre SNL, but got the biggest laugh of the night by pretending to be asleep when the winner was called, and made news for calling out the Emmys and our culture for silencing comedians.

UPDATE 10/15: Silverman is included in the new book Tokin' Women: A 4000-Year Herstory.

Five Tokin Women were up for Emmys, presented at an awards ceremony tonight. But it's Sarah Silverman who is now trending, after she won an Emmy for writing her Variety Special We Are Miracles - just after she showed off her vape pen on the red carpet, calling it "liquid marijuana." Silverman stood out in her long, green dress on a night when almost every actress wore red.

Silverman said afterwards she didn't "have a puff-a-roony" until after the event. But kicking off her shoes and speaking about molecules hurtling through space for her speech seemed the stoniest since Whoopi Goldberg accepter her Oscar. Fox News noticed what a stony night it was and Kate Rogers said Sarah seems to be aging in reverse (meaning looking younger all the time). "The magical properties of weed!" commented Gabrielle Karol. "Is high the new drunk?" asked host Diana Falzone. Now that 23 states have some kind of legalized pot, it seems so, replied Chris Kensler.


Former SNLer Amy Poehler was up for Outstanding Lead Actress in Parks and Recreation and told the best joke of the night: introducing Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey she said, "Please welcome two men who are menu items at marijuana dispensaries."

Jane Fonda, who recently won an AFI lifetime achievement award, was nominated as Outstanding Guest Actress for The Newsroom; Fonda's nomination reel contained a scene in which her character is stoned.

Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley also garnered two nominations, for Whoopi as Outstanding Narrator, and for Outstanding Documentary or Non-Fiction Special. Whoopi recently waxed rhapsodic about her cannabis vape pen in a Denver Post article. (She lost the narration prize to Jeremy Irons and the doc lost to PBS's JFK.)

COSMOS, co-produced by NORML board member Ann Druyan (pictured), was up for ten awards and won three. Druyan is the widow of Very Important Pothead Carl Sagan.

VIPs in the Male Category who were nominated include Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as actors in True Detective and Anthony Bordain for hosting The Taste. Bourdain's Parts Unknown won for Outstanding Informational Series and was up for five more awards. The Colbert Report received five nominations, including outstanding Variety Series, vying with Real Time with Bill Maher for that award (and winning). Seth MacFarlane was nominated for Outstanding Character Voiceover Performance for Family Guy; he was also a producer on COSMOS.

Also a winner is Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis and Barack Obama for Outstanding Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Program.

Who says stoners don't contribute to our culture?

Allison Janney beat out Jane Fonda as Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for "Masters of Sex" and also took home an Emmy as Best Supporting Actress for "Mom." A little while back, someone wrote in that her mom smoked pot with Allison back in college.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus beat out Amy Poehler for best actress in a comedy series. See her searching for a bag of weed on her old Christine series.

Kathy Bates played a marijuana smoker in the 2011-12 series "Harry's Law," but had to play a witch in "American Horror Story: Coven" to win an Emmy. Another "Coven" winner was Jessica Lange, whose character apparently snorts coke. Bates, who also played Alice B. Toklas's lover Gertrude Stein on film, wore an outfit (right) that almost looked like it was decorated with big silver pot leaves. 

While reigning as People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, Adam Levine gave a fistpump in support of marijuana legalization on the program.

2 Broke Girls, West Wing and Jocelyn Elders: Things I learned...

Jennifer Coolidge finds relief in cannabis cupcakes on 2 Broke Girls.

Growing up, I loved to read the Sydney J. Harris newspaper column, "Things I learned while looking up other things." I learn a lot of things that way myself.

Posting my story Gossip Girls Having Sex in the City on the NORML Women's Alliance Facebook page, I asked readers the question: In what other TV shows do women smoke pot together? I got answers about Nurse Jackie (a pill popper who once made an apple bong for a patient); ladies "toking it regularly" in the Showtime series Shameless; Gemma Teller (Katy Segal) "lighting up on the regular" on Sons of Anarchy; and Weeds, where Nancy occasionally does smoke (but seems to prefer wine).

I checked out an episode of Shameless, where Emily Rossum is sent to the salt mines to support the family her alcoholic dad won't. Not exactly empowering. I also saw the first episode of Sons of Anarchy where Gemma plots to employ her son in meth and gun running, and enables his girlfriend to OD on heroin. Not a role model, in my book.

I did get a tip that CBS's 2 Broke Girls had an episode with pot, and found a clip on YouTube (complete with Portuguese subtitles) from the show's "And the High Holidays" episode featuring the always-amusing Jennifer Coolidge munching marijuana cupcakes for her menstrual cramps. The perpetually perky Caroline (Beth Behrs) has some revelations about reality as a result of her own marijuana munching, which could have been interesting if the writing was better on this show. (As Tokin Woman Joan Rivers pointed out recently, TV writing is terrible of late.)

I decided to Google Kat Denning, the brunette star of 2 Broke Girls because she seems like a cool pothead type, whose character really lights up when it's discovered marijuana plants are growing in the girls' closet. Turns out the actress claims she doesn't drink or smoke, because she's already "an idiot" who doesn't need a stimulant to show her true feelings. (It's kind of nice she's so evolved; reminds me of Anais Nin's comments after taking LSD: Americans need it to open them up, but she already lives there.)

In the comments on the page with Denning's revelations, kemperboyd wrote, "Well that kills my weird fantasy of smoking a bowl with Denning, Allison Janney, Rashida Jones and a few other cool ladies, talking feminism and pop culture." iladelphian responded, "My mom smoked with Allison Janney in college."

So I got my Google on with Allison Janney + marijuana and came up instead with a page about a plot line in West Wing about a Surgeon General played by Mary Kay Place (who smoked pot with William Hurt in 1983's The Big Chill). The episode, which has Place's character almost getting fired for seeming to favor marijuana legalization, was doubtlessly based on the true story of Jocelyn Elders, Clinton's Surgeon General who was forced out of office after publicly promoting masterbation, condoms and reasonable drug laws.

Elders appeared at a press conference during the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Santa Monica in 1995. I was there, and had my hand up throughout, but wasn't called on to ask my question. The organizers announced the appearance was over but Elders stopped them, pointing at me and saying, "I want to take her question." I asked whether or not she supported Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative that was on the ballot the following November. She responded that she did, and a clip of her response was used in campaign ads for the proposition, which became the first medical marijuana law in the country.

During the event, Elders said while in office she went on a trip and when she returned, every piece of information about the drug war had been removed from her office. She lamented the antics of the "little boys" of Washington and said there was no one in that town we could turn to for an intelligent response.

Of former Health and Human Services chief Donna Shalala, who stood with Janet Reno and Barry McCaffrey to threaten doctors recommending medical marijuana after Prop. 215 passed, Elders said later, "She studied political science. That's the kind of science she practices." Shalala admitted to Diane Sawyer that she smoked pot in college, but now believes, “Marijuana is illegal, dangerous, unhealthy and wrong. It’s a one-way ticket to dead-end hopes and dreams.” Except in her own case, it seems.

The US has been largely without a Surgeon General of late (but has plenty of political scientists making medical decisions for the nation). Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who turned Obama down for the post, has now successfully advanced the cause of medical marijuana: his show on the use of CBD-rich marijuana for childhood epilepsy has resulted in FDA approval for an imported plant tincture to help children in need.