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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: What big highs you have, granny
Cosmo Landesman The Sunday Times
Sunday 13 Mar 2005 It's supposed to be purely medicinal but Granny Tabram's cannabis cake blew Cosmo Landesman's mind 'Hello, it's the grandma who eats cannabis here - could I have a taxi please?" Did Pat Tabram really say that or was I hearing things? It was late afternoon and I was feeling strange. Grandma's living room was starting to breathe. Grandma's dog was trying to tell me something. Clearly, grandma's chocolate cannabis cake was starting to kick in. Earlier that afternoon I had arrived at the village of Humshaugh in Northumberland to hear how 66-year-old Tabram - who had never smoked a joint in her entire life until last year - has ended up a folk hero to Britain's cannabis consuming classes. Last week she appeared in Newcastle crown court convicted of possession and intent to supply cannabis (she will be sentenced next month). Now she is planning to stand as an MP against Peter Hain on behalf of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance and has signed a book deal for her recipes. "You should try my cannabis leek and chicken pie, it's wonderful," she said. "And my cannabis lime cheesecake is heaven." But in February last year she was on the verge of suicide.For the previous three months she had been living a reclusive existence: no bathing, rarely eating, rarely sleeping: "A doctor had given me a prescription drug for my depression and I was suffering from terrible side effects like tinnitus, hair thinning, bruises on my arms, red lumps on my face." A worried friend banged on her door and when Tabram asked for a cigarette, proferred a roll-up. "After two puffs my head was like a balloon. I lay in my chair and started singing," Tabram recalls. She had just smoked her first joint and it was like discovering a miracle cure. "That night I slept for 12 1/2 hours. In the morning I cooked my first proper meal in eight months, the red lumps on my face had gone down, my tinnitus had stopped and my hearing improved." Tabram did not like smoking cannabis, so her friend told her that she could cook with it and gave her the name of a Newcastle pub to make her purchases. "The place was full of all these long-haired teenagers. When the dealer came in, I went up to him and said, 'Hello dear, are you the man with the cannabis?' " Tabram began using recipes found on the internet. People in the village soon noticed the change in her. "They kept saying to me, 'Pat, you look great', and I'd say, 'Yes, I've been cooking with cannabis'." She then got a call from a woman with multiple sclerosis who had not been out of the house for six years. Tabram turned up with cannabis soup and biscuits. "A week later the woman phoned and said, 'I want to thank you. I went out and was able to feed myself without shaking'." Soon Tabram had a small group of wheelchair-bound sufferers who met to exchange recipes and create a pool for purchasing. Then, to save money, they decided to grow their own. But in May last year the police came and found 31 plants and later 9oz of cannabis. They charged Tabram with possession and intent to supply. Not that this has dissuaded her. Tabram's initial use may have been purely for medicinal reasons, but she is now permanently stoned. She certainly has the happy manner of someone who is high, never stops talking and displays signs of classic pot paranoia when she claims that we are all being poisoned by conventional National Health Service medicine. I asked her: if it was the side effects of the anti-depressants that made her sick why, since she has stopped taking them, does she still need cannabis? Here she looks pensive. "Because my depression is deep-rooted," she said. It began when she lost her 14-year-old son in 1975. Post-interview, as I lay pale and sweating in the crowded waiting room of Newcastle railway station, suffering the after-effects of grandma's cake, I came to the conclusion that Tabram sincerely believes in the medicinal value of cannabis but has become an addict - to all the attention that has come her way. The granny who eats cannabis is suddenly a celebrity and that is one of the hardest habits to break. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.2 - Release Date: 11/03/2005
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