1st time grow-leaves curling and sick looking at the top, Help!!

Hi, I'm a newb on a first time grow and looking for a little insight. I'll describe it to you because I'm not in a 420 friendly location and I was warned against continuing to take and post pics. I have 3 plants all flowering, the oldest has been for a little over 2 months. Its been slow I'm told because theres not enough light (forced to use CFLs and grow right in a closet due to budget constraints) but its budding ok under the circumstances.

Problem is, at the top of all three plants the leaves are looking almost dead, very dry, thin and curled under, even the buds look like theyre affected, very sparse. I've always been under the impression the top cola is where the biggest, densest buds should be on the plant but I have fuller, definitely healthier looking buds going down the plants and the leaves start looking healthy again maybe 1 quarter of the way down each plant. Whats wrong??

Common sense says the light and heat is damaging the top of the plant but I've been told over and over CFLs must be kept close & dont generate a lot of heat, and I've already seen what happens when i kept the lights too far away. Help if you can, thanks in advance.

Sounds like an air-circulation problem to me. What's the temperature of your grow area and what are you using as a reflective surface? I've had a similar problem in the past. One of my plants was in a back corner of my room and wasn't getting proper air flow. I was using HID, but even with florescent lighting you can have heat buildup. These hot spots are especially bad if you make the novice mistake of using aluminum foil to reflect the light. The leaves will turn brown and crispy and the buds will dry up, shrivel and die. You can keep the lights quite close, but make sure you've got lots of air-circulation in the grow area. I usually aim one of my fans directly at the light source to prevent this and another blowing air around the plants. Don't blow the fans directly at your plants however.