If you have teenage kids, sometimes the most gracious thing you can do as a parent is to fade into the background. You probably shouldn't shop at Abercombie and Fitch, you don't need to play air guitar and regale your kids with stories about The Who's reunion concert and you really don't need to end up in the police log of your local newspaper for possession of marijuana.

From 1990 to 2002, roughly 6.2 million people across the United States were arrested for possession of pot. According to FBI stats, 8,975 Massachusetts residents were busted in 2000. And the biggest fans of the drug aren't kids smoking in the boy's room, it's adults ages 35 to 49, men and women -- the folks at the country club, the members of the PTO, the people who sit next to you every Sunday in church.

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