I take a look at when things really begin to change, is when the social culture changes. I think Will And Grace probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far.
-- Vice President Joe Biden

Less than two years ago (it seems longer, but it's not), Vice President Joe Biden responded to a question about gay marriage in a Meet The Press interview. The quote above was taken from his answer (I provided the whole answer in an article I wrote about it back then). At the time, it was big news, due to the upcoming presidential election. President Obama, a few days later, gave his first statement supporting gay marriage (where he famously "evolved" on the issue), which was even bigger news.

Setting all of that aside, though, Biden voiced something I had long believed: the sympathetic portrayal of gays in popular entertainment did a lot to shift the opinion of the American public. Movies like Philadelphia and television shows like Will And Grace helped introduce the concept (which doesn't sound radical now, but certainly did back then) that gay people were, at heart, just like you and me -- fellow human beings. This was a long process which included other pop-culture moments, such as Ellen DeGeneres "coming out" to America on her own show. This effort took decades, in fact, and is a large part of the reason why anyone born after roughly 1990 has an entirely different outlook on gay rights than older Americans. They grew up watching the normalization of gay characters on television and in the movies. It should be no surprise that they now can't even understand why their elders have such a problem with concepts like gay marriage.

I say all this as a preface to commenting on a television program I watched (well, most of it) last night. Needless to say, commenting on pop culture isn't my strong point, and is in fact a rare occurrence in these pages. But I was so struck by what I saw that I felt it merited mentioning.

My wife was watching the show Bones, which I normally don't watch myself. I missed a bit of the beginning, but caught most of the rest of the episode. The entire storyline dealt with the subject of medical marijuana, and it did so in a very sympathetic light. Well, the ending kind of went off the rails, but that was more due to the necessity (as in all such mystery shows) of having multiple plot twists in the last 15 minutes.

But for most of the episode, they actually deeply examined several points of view, leading most of the characters to come to the conclusion that medical marijuana was indeed a good thing, even if it is still illegal under federal law. Characters such as the uber-nerdly scientist and the ultra-straightlaced F.B.I. agent were shown dealing with a debate which might be labeled "preconceived notions versus reality." To help this plotline along, a minor character who has cancer admitted that he'd been using medicinal marijuana, which promptly got him fired from his job (working for the federal government in law enforcement). He was about as sympathetic as characters get, and his personal story shone through as an example of why medical marijuana is beneficial -- and why it shouldn't be as controversial as it still is. There was also a dedicated doctor who ran a dispensary, although I didn't catch where it was located (Virginia, or perhaps D.C.?).

The main ethical struggle was the fact that medical marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, even though states have legalized its use. To put it another way: when is "breaking the law" acceptable in society? If it's a bad law preventing good things from happening, isn't it better to ignore the law? The whole plot went deeply into such ethical questions (a variation on the classic ethical quandary: "If your family is hungry, should you steal bread so they can eat?"), to the show's credit. They also explored various aspects of the medical marijuana movement and of marijuana itself, all in a factual and well-reasoned manner (well, except for that silly ending...).

I, for one, was glad to see such a conversation take place among the characters on a primetime drama, even one I don't normally watch. They got most of their facts right, they didn't lapse into preachy nonsense, and they avoided getting too maudlin (although they did sort of save the cancer patient's job, in the end). But what they mainly did very well was to humanize the political debate. For that, Bones deserves a lot of credit.

Now, I realize that this isn't the first show to tackle the subject of marijuana in a positive way. Cable shows like Weeds have done so in the past. Even on network television, some shows are inching closer to realistic portrayals of marijuana, most notably (that I've seen, at least) Parenthood, where in one of their first episodes adults smoked pot recreationally and then the world did not end the next day. In a later season, one of the main characters on Parenthood went through chemotherapy and decided to try medicinal marijuana as well. So Bones wasn't really trailbreaking, to be sure.

But I have to say, it did a pretty admirable job presenting the differing viewpoints (including "it's against the law" from the straightlaced federal agent) in very human terms. Also, the entire episode dealt with as many different aspects of marijuana laws as they could squeeze in -- it was not a subplot or a brief mention, it was the totality of the storyline for the week.

I have no idea what others are now saying about last night's Bones, because I'll admit I do not read pop culture blogs or news much. Perhaps it's just me that sees this as a significant step towards marijuana being portrayed in a sympathetic light on primetime broadcast television networks. But I have to applaud the effort, because I think it is long overdue. Look at the timeline of when Will And Grace aired versus when gay rights actually started making big gains legally, and you'll see there was a significant time gap. In marijuana's case, legal gains are actually leading the pop culture references. Which is why I say this is long overdue.

Of course, gay rights didn't have to fight back against federal tax dollars being used to push opposing propaganda onto the airwaves -- this is one big reason why the difference in timelines. From Nancy Reagan's time onwards, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been wheedling Hollywood to insert anti-drug messages into programming. This has been going on for decades, in fact (your tax dollars at work!) -- something the gay rights movement never had to cope with. It is only recently that the media moguls have been lobbied from the other direction -- by people who are actively promoting marijuana's product placement in popular culture.

But I have to say that Bones took a big step last night, towards a realistic and human portrayal of what the marijuana movement is fighting for. It showed that there are other valid ways to look at things than what federal law says. On primetime broadcast television, no less. It's not exactly as influential or pioneering as what Will And Grace did, but for the time being it was certainly appreciated by me, at the very least.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant