Today I was in the checkout line at the local supermarket, and while there I made a point to check the local gossip mags — Us, People, In Style — for the latest news. I find this is my best way to maintain contact with the common rabble of the American public. I discovered that Miley Cyrus has been caught smoking pot.

This must be an interesting conundrum for the Cyrus family (one of several, as it just occurred to me, it was recently announced that Miley’s mother had an affair with Bret Michaels.) How does someone like her father — mega successful country artist Billy Ray Cyrus — tell his daughter to stay away from drugs? No doubt he was partying back when he was 19. And he is the one person most responsible for pushing his daughter into the limelight.

I guess the larger question is: how do glamorous celebrity types — who are all drug snorting bisexuals — handle the fine art of disciplining teenagers? Normal parents who may have done their share of partying back in the day don’t have their antics preserved for antiquity in copies of People magazine from 20 years ago. But, modern celebrities have zero moral authority when they tell their kids not to do drugs. I mean, how can Tommy Lee wear a straight face while telling his kids to stay away from crack?

And, I think there’s an additional layer to this. Most people have some kind of youthful flirtation with drugs and wild sex and general partying, and retreat largely unscathed. It’s, frankly, a pretty enjoyable experience — not one I would want to deny my children (if I had children.) Can someone like Billy Ray Cyrus deliver the message, “you should have fun, but not too much fun”?