Cannabis gran walks free

Patricia Tabram, 66, only took the drug for medicinal reasons and to help elderly friends suffering a variety of ailments.

The former restaurateur who prides herself on her cooking, turned to the drug as a natural remedy for tinnitus, mild depression and aches and pains caused by a car crash.

Rather than smoke the drug, the grandmother-of-two found she preferred it in soup, cakes and hot pots.

Friends in the village of Humshaugh, close to Hadrian's Wall by Hexham, Northumberland, also developed a taste for them.

But the heady smells wafting from her country kitchen drew the attention of the police who raided her stone-built cottage.

Northumbria Police were tipped off and raided the premises twice in May and June last year.

And they recovered several plastic self-seal bags used to preserve the cannabis once it had been separated out for her friends, who had each pooled around £150 for their supply.

Mrs Tabram was formally cautioned for possession and cultivation of controlled drugs after the first bust in May.

But she said she needed the drug to combat her medical conditions and continued to cook up the cannabis hotpots, and admitted possession of cannabis with intent to supply.

Yesterday prosecutor Stuart Graham told Newcastle Crown Court that police who raided Mrs Tabram's home found 242 grammes - 64 bags - of high grade herbal cannabis, known as skunk, which had a street value of £854.

Handing out a six month jail sentence, suspended for two years, Judge David Hodson said: "Anyone who lives in this part of the world would have to be blind or daft not to know what you have been doing since you pleaded guilty.

"You have certainly been active in advancing your beliefs as to the beneficial effects of this drug. You may have been trying to mkae the courts make a martyr out of you. I have no intention of doing that.

"We have heard you will continue to use cannabis but not supply it to your friends.

"I hope you mean what you say, I propose to give you the opportunity to be as good as your word.

"If you do involve yourself in supplying cannabis to others you will have sent yourself to prison."

He ordered the drugs be destroyed and that she pay costs of £750. Mrs Tabram left court to cheers from the public gallery.

Carl Gumsley, mitigating, said: "She is not a drug dealer, she has always absolutely denied dealing cannabis.

"What she was doing was buying in bulk herself on behalf of a group of five.

Your lordship is dealing with a 66-year-old who has led what is quite clearly an eventful life and one filled with a fair degree of tragedy.

"She has been wrestling serious mental health problems. She is a woman who has led a blameless life through difficult circumstances.

"This is a woman who has found solace in this substance, whatever the rights and wrongs of that.

"She is a 66-year-old who took money as a pooled resource from people more elderly than her and would purchase cannabis to eat in order to relieve them of pain.

"She was acting often in her life out of her belief for what is right for people in what was a selfless way.

"She is a woman of her word. She has well held views and maintains she will continue to take cannabis. She maintains her genuinely held belief there should be a campaign to legalise cannabis. She has no remorse."

Before the hearing Mrs Tabram said: "I had been using cannabis to eat and bake in my food for months since I was introduced to it in February last year.

I'm sure the whole village knows about it now. "I have suffered from illnesses including tinnitus and depression for several years and NHS prescribed medicines bring me out in a rash.

"I believe cannabis should be made legal for medical reasons - its a natural herb. It has given me natural pain relief, as it has for my other friends who are suffering from MS and other conditions."

Mrs Tabram added: "I'm a good cook and I used the stuff I'd bought from a pub in Newcastle to put in stews, soups, curries and chocolate cake and desserts.

In fact I was known for my chicken and leek pie and lemon and lime cheesecake specialities."

Mrs Tabram also tried growing hash from seeds in the loft. Her plants reached about 10 inches high before the police found them and took them away.

"Five police arrived last May and said they knew I had cannabis. They said they had been told it was in the hut outside, and I said it wasn't," she explained.

"When they searched and found nothing I said I told you they weren't in the hut, they are in the attic," added the pensioner.

"The police took 31 seedling plants from the attic. They weren't very pleased when I said they couldn't take the soil or the huge pots because they were mine."

South Shields-born Mrs Tabram ran the Zodiac Centre restaurant in Edinburgh with her husband, who she later divorced. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl.

Her depression started after the tragic death of her 14-year-old son, Duncan, in 1975. She found him dead in bed face down in his pillow.

"It was such a shock, I never really got over it. It is still painful to recall what happened to Duncan," she said.

She remarried and had a second son, Colin, 25, but her husband, David, died from cancer. She has two grandchildren but hasn't had contact with them or her daughter for several years.

Mrs Tabram was also involved in a car crash off the A69 in Northumberland while waiting in a line of traffic.

She suffered whiplash injuries and had to wear a surgical collar. The pensioner also suffers pain from a lower back injury, and arthritic knees.

She has almost finished a book about her experiences called "Grandma Eats Cannabis, which she hopes to get published.

"I don't believe cannabis is a drug, like heroin and cocaine," she added.

"Several friends found out my interest and how I liked to bake it in my food to help ease my ailments. I have taught others how to cook with it."

Mrs Tabram took her quest for medicinal hash relief further and became involved with an unnamed drugs dealer.

She said: "I had been going on the bus to Byker in Newcastle to get amounts of small amounts of cannabis, at around £20 a time. It was all I could afford as a pensioner. That was used in the cooking. When I got a chance to get more and help out my friends, I met a supplier."

Mrs Tabram said she was scared, but after a series of rendezvous with the dealer in coffee shops, the man arranged to hand over the stash.

"I took the envelope with the kitty money and gave it to him. He pulled out a package from under his coat, it was similar to an inside gun shoulder holster pouch," she said.

"He gave me a nine bar, and I asked him if he wanted to count the cash. He said I didn't look the sort of person who would want to cheat anyone. He gave me a little bit extra of the loose stuff."

After the hearing yesterday Patricia gave a press conference on the steps of the court.

The gran is standing as an MP in Neath for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance to challenge Labour MP and leader of the House of Commons Peter Hain.

She said: "I didn't think I was a martyr - but maybe I am a modern day Emily Pankhurst.

"I don't think it is right that they are making me £750 in costs, I'm just a pensioner and I can't afford that, it is weeks and weeks on pension money for an old lady like me.

"I think community service would have been a fairer sentence.

"I have nursed people all my life. Once you begin caring for people it is a very hard thing to give up.

"I do intend to continue using cannabis but I haven't given any to anyone since the day I was arrested.

"I think it is better medicine than what you receive from the NHS. Every year there are 10,000 deaths and 15,000 operations on the NHS linked to conventional medicine. I do not want to become a statistic.

"But I am no more addicted to cannabis than I am to soap operas. I will continue to go to people's houses and cook for them if people get their own ingredients.

"That is all I will do. I will cook if they get the ingredients.

"We should have a law in this country like they do in Australia where you are allowed to have five cannabis plants growing in every house once a year.

"But the major political parties are not interested in using their brain on this issue.

"Prohibition just creates criminals like Al Capone in the United States.

"The government must see sense on this issue, they must think about it hard.

"I far prefer to use cannabis than conventional medicines like codeine that you can get from your doctor or from the shops.

"These drugs have so many side effects including severe medical depression, hallucinations, fits and asthma. I do not want those things to affect me.

"Since I was arrested there is a man who lives locally who delivers the drug to me."