DAUGHTER TELLS POLICE OF PARENTS' DRUG CROP

Two former anti-nuclear activists who had crossed into establishment
respectability in Washington found their lives ruined yesterday after
their teenage daughter told police her parents grew cannabis in the
basement.

Robert Alvarez, 54, and his wife Kitty Tucker have been charged with
possession and supply of a controlled drug. Mr Alvarez was instantly
sacked from his job as senior policy analyst to Bill Richardson, the
Energy Secretary, after the couple's 16-year-old daughter Kerry
informed on her parents.

Miss Tucker, 55, a former trade union activist and anti-nuclear
campaigner, brought to public attention the death of Karen Silkwood,
who died in a mysterious car accident as she drove to meet a reporter
and disclose details of safety problems at the Oklahoma nuclear plant
where she worked. Miss Tucker worked as an adviser on the 1983 film of
the story, Silkwood. She later became director of the Health and
Energy institute, a Washington pressure group.

Police visited the Alvarez-Tucker home in the Takoma Park suburb of
the capital last week after Kerry went to the police armed with
photographs of the cannabis plants in the basement. They claimed to
have found 69 plants in the basement along with the hydroponic system
of lights and water used for growing them. In the bedroom they found
several pipes and packets of cigarette rolling papers as well as books
on cultivation of the plants.

Steven Kupferberg, the couple's lawyer, said there were only 16 plants
and that Miss Tucker had a medical disability for which cannabis
provided the only relief. He expected the original charges of
possession and trafficking to be reduced to simple possession.

Both the police and Mr Kupferberg refused to comment on Kerry's
motives. Her parents were released on unconditional bail, but their
daughter is staying with family friends on the orders of a judge.

A spokesman for the Energy Department said Mr Richardson had fired Mr
Alvarez because he had "lost trust and confidence in his ability to
perform his duties".