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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Gran, 68, denies cannabis charge
Tom Wilkinson The Journal
Tuesday 06 Mar 2007 A 68-year-old Northumberland grandmother who "passionately" believes in using cannabis to relieve pain went before a judge and jury yesterday charged with growing and possessing the drug. Pensioner Patricia Tabram denies one count of possession and one of cultivating the drug. The drugs were found when police raided her home in East Lea, Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland, in September 2005. Mrs Tabram directed officers to a bedroom where cannabis plants were growing in a wardrobe and told them there was powder stored in jars in her kitchen to be used in cooking. Police seized four plants, growing equipment and the powdered form of the drug which the prosecution claims was for her personal use. Tom Moran, prosecuting, told Carlisle Crown Court: "Mrs Tabram is somebody who passionately believes in the use of cannabis as a way of relieving pain. She says she suffers from various health problems that are, she says, not alleviated by conventional medicine. She believes she should be able to take cannabis to do what conventional medicine cannot do." Mr Moran told the jury they were not there to debate legalisation of cannabis. He added: "You are not here to debate whether the law should be changed, you are here to apply the law as it stands at the moment." He said it was a straightforward case which followed a police raid on a Friday lunchtime, during which Mrs Tabram was "fully cooperative" with officers. She showed them to a bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe where there was electrical equipment, a watering system and a heat lamp along with four cannabis plants. In the kitchen there was powdered cannabis from an earlier harvest, the jury was told. Mr Moran said: "The amount recovered was consistent with it being used by Mrs Tabram for her own use," he said. Sgt Alan Clement, under cross-examination by Tabram, who is defending herself, admitted she had also asked him to seize the contents of her freezer. He said: "I cannot remember exactly this conversation but it was to the effect that we were not going to take food out of your freezer." The grey-haired pensioner replied: "The reason I asked you to please take it was, I believe, if you had gone back to the police station with 22 boxes of curries, casseroles, biscuits, cake and ice cream, this would have proved to the Crown Prosecution Service that I only use cannabis to cook." There was a ripple of laughter in the courtroom when the defendant pointed out that a police statement read out by the prosecution was dated September 11, 2005, five days before the raid took place. The prosecution said it will investigate why the document was wrongly dated. The case continues. http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/thejournal/
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