"In the Heat of the Night" star Carroll O'Connor says he couldn't stop rampant drug use on the set of his show.
"I gathered together the heads of departments, and said, `Boys, help me, find out who's doing the using and who's doing the selling," the actor recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.O'Connor's son, Hugh, killed himself in March after a history of drug abuse. He played a lieutenant on the CBS series "In the Heat of the Night."
O'Connor said no one heeded his anti-drug pleas.
"I think they were laughing at me," he said. "As much as to say, `Are you asking us to do the impossible, are you asking us to clean up a drug problem that's all over America?' In a way, I suppose they had the right to laugh."
MGM Television's current executives were not with the studio when the show was produced and have no comment, spokeswoman Pam Rubin Golum said Friday.
The last episode of the series, which is in its eighth year, airs Tuesday.