Cartoonist Gary Varvel: Roseanne blames Ambien Our words or tweets can not only get us in big trouble, they can hurt innocent people as well.

Gary Varvel | IndyStar

Show Caption Hide Caption Varvel: Drawing Ambien warning Watch Gary Varvel's time lapse drawing of the Ambien warning in this editorial cartoon.

"The mouths of fools are their undoing, and their lips are a snare to their very lives." - Proverbs 18:7

After Roseanne Barr apologized for her now-infamous slur, she then blamed "Ambien tweeting" for the despicable musings that got her TV show cancelled.

Mocking Barr's Ambien blaming, Sanofi, the drug company that makes Ambien, tweeted: "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."

According to a USA Today article, "Barr isn't the first to blame the drug for disturbing behavior. Years ago, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's daughter Kerry Kennedy blamed Ambien for a drugged-driving incident. Ambien was also one of the drugs found in Tiger Woods' system after police found him asleep in his car in the middle of a highway."

According to its FDA-approved labeling, the drug may cause abnormal thinking and changes in behavior: "Some of these changes may be characterized by decreased inhibition, similar to effects produced by alcohol."

Which brings me to my cartoon. Certainly people on mind-altering substances can say and do things they wouldn't normally do when sober. Barr's "decreased inhibition" does not excuse her racist tweet.

Barr apologized but also tweeted, "I'm not a racist, just an idiot who made a bad joke."

The 'bad joke' that caused the outrage said, "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." The "vj" stood for Valerie Jarrett, an Obama White House aide who is African American.

There's an old saying that, "what's down in the well, comes up in the bucket." In this case, the bucket is Twitter. But the well is Barr's mind and what was in there was disgusting.

Twitter has become a platform for insults and bullies. People write horrible things about others that they would never say face to face. Why? To make others feel their pain? To make themselves feel superior? It's a disturbing reflection of society.

And I certainly can't write this column without mentioning President Donald Trump's tweets. He uses Twitter to attack his opponents almost daily.

The Bible has a lot to say about the power of communication. "The tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." - James 3:5-6

We're all sinners and we must be careful not to say everything we think. Our words or tweets can not only get us in big trouble, they can hurt innocent people as well.

Barr's tweet got her fired. The cast and crew on her new show also got burned and they are out of a job today.

That's Barr's fault, not Ambien's.

Contact Varvel at gary.varvel@indystar.com. Friend him on Facebook at Gary Varvel and follow him on Twitter: @varvel.