UK: Guilty gran says she'll keep using cannabis

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News and Star, Carlisle

Thursday 08 Mar 2007

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A 68-YEAR-OLD grandmother left Carlisle Crown Court yesterday vowing
never to give up the cannabis she says has brought her comfort after
nearly three decades of pain.

Pat Tabram had just been found guilty of cultivating four cannabis
plants in a walk-in wardrobe at her home in Humshaugh, near Hexham, and
of possessing the illegal drug.

But ï¿½ after dismissing the British legal system as ï¿½a jokeï¿½ during her
trial ï¿½ she said the verdicts would not stop her including small amounts
of ï¿½medicinalï¿½ cannabis in cooking.

ï¿½She will always take cannabis,ï¿½ her barrister Andrew Ford told Judge
Barbara Forrester.

Tabram was ordered to do 250 hours community work and made to pay ï¿½1,000
court costs.

Judge Barbara Forrester decided not to jail her for breaking the terms
of a suspended sentence imposed at Newcastle Crown Court two years ago
for possessing cannabis.

She said she accepted that Tabram genuinely believed ï¿½ albeit wrongly ï¿½
that the judge on that occasion had told her she would not get into any
further trouble if she kept her drug taking to herself.

But the judge warned her she could still go to prison if she failed to
do the community service, or if she was convicted of further drugs offences.

During the three-day trial prosecuting counsel Tom Moran told the court
that Tabram was a passionate believer in the right of people to use
cannabis for the relief of pain when conventional medicine had not
proved effective.

However, that was not a legitimate defence.

In evidence Tabram said she used the drug to alleviate the side-effects
of conventional medicines.

She said she had suffered 27 years of pain, sleeplessness and other
problems caused by prescribed drugs.

ï¿½The top and bottom of it is that I discovered the medicinal value of
cannabis,ï¿½ she said.

ï¿½I donï¿½t have any illnesses now. I simply use cannabis as medication and
it works.ï¿½

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