They are scenes that paint a startling picture of the drug culture's legacy on American home life: A teenage girl shares her hopes and dreams with her mother—as they binge on methamphetamines. A boy bonds with his father over a marijuana-filled bong.

For the vast majority of families, scenes such as these are hard to fathom. But counselors who deal with teen addicts across the USA say that parents' complicity has become a significant factor in putting kids on a path to drug dependency.

A survey of nearly 600 teens in drug treatment in New York, Texas, Florida, and California indicated that 20 percent have shared drugs other than alcohol with their parents, and that about 5 percent of the teens actually were introduced to drugs—usually marijuana—by their moms or dads.