Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:


After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.

UK: Grandmother ran cannabis cookery club for neighbours

Paul Stokes

The Telegraph

Wednesday 26 Jan 2005

---

A retired restaurateur has admitted raising a kitty with other pensioners
to buy cannabis which she used in her recipes for "medicinal purposes".

Patricia Tabram, a grey-haired grandmother, turned to the drug in an
attempt to offset the effects of tinnitus, mild depression and pains after
a car crash.

She began using it in soups, cakes and hot pots in her country kitchen and
introduced others to the secret ingredient. Police raided her stone-built
cottage in the village of Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland, after a
tip-off.

Tabram, 66, was formally cautioned in May last year for possession and
cultivation of cannabis after 10in high plants were found growing in her
loft. A month later she was caught with 242gms of the drug worth around
ukp850 and self-seal bags for distribution to other people who she declined
to name.

She told police that she had clubbed together with a group of elderly
people to obtain cannabis for various medicinal reasons. Carl Gumsley, her
defence counsel, told Newcastle Crown Court: "She had purchased it on their
behalf."

Tabram admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply and sentence was
adjourned until March 11 to await reports from a probation officer and
psychologist. She appeared in court in spectacles and a black cardigan and
was remanded on bail with a condition of residence.

Wearing a woollen shawl in her well-stocked kitchen after the hearing, she
said that she was writing a book entitled Grandma Eats Cannabis.

She said: "If they send me to jail I can finish writing my book about the
merits of medicinal, herbal cannabis. I want people to know NHS medicines
are poisoning them instead of treating their illness. If Jeffrey Archer can
write a book in prison, so can I."

Tabram ran the Zodiac Centre restaurant in Edinburgh with her former
husband and suffered depression after the death of her 14-year-old son
Duncan in 1975. Her second husband died from cancer, she suffers from a
lower back injury sustained in a road crash and also has arthritic knees.

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

Tabram admitted to being scared when she first began travelling to Byker,
Newcastle, to obtain the drug.

She said: "I had been going by bus to get small amounts at around ukp20 a
time. It was all I could afford as a pensioner. It was used in the cooking.
When I got a chance to get more and help out friends, I met a supplier. I
hadn't asked them to contribute, they wanted the stuff to help them relieve
pain."

Police seized the drug, along with diaries, nail scissors and books, at her
home before she had time to distribute it to the people she says had put in
around ukp150 each.

Tabram added: "The first time I had it, it was a friend who gave me a
cannabis cigarette, but that only gives you a high for about 30 minutes. I
researched it on the internet and found that if you took just a little bit
of it with your food the effects last for five hours or more.

"So I started to make cannabis chocolate cake and that covered all the pain
I had so well. I cook for everybody, all the neighbours, and I am teaching
them so they can cook some of the things themselves.

"The most popular recipes I have are for lemon and lime cheesecake and
chicken and leek pie. I want to publish a cook book with all of them in."



 

 

 

After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.




This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!