Pubdate: Thu, 22 Sep 2005
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Copyright: 2005 Associated Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/108
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

CANNABIS GRANDMOTHER BAILED AGAIN

A grandmother who advocates cooking with cannabis must wait another 
two months to hear if she must go before the courts again for 
cultivating the drug.

Patricia Tabram, 66, answered bail at Hexham police station, 
Northumberland, and emerged 90 minutes later after she was re-bailed.

The grey-haired pensioner was arrested last week at her home in the 
quiet village of Humshaugh, near Hexham.

Police recovered plants at her home, which they told her needed 
further analysis.

Outside the police station, she said: "Anyone who knows anything 
about cannabis knows it [the plants] is cannabis, but they said they 
need proof."

In April the grandmother-of-two received a six-month jail sentence, 
suspended for two years, after she admitted possessing cannabis with 
intent to supply.

The judge warned her she faced jail if she committed the same offence again.

Mrs Tabram denied she was trying to goad Northumbria Police. "I 
didn't raid my house," she said.

"I think they are wanting to make an example of this little old lady. 
But if they do, and they send me to prison, the public will ask, 'why 
does this woman medicate with cannabis?'."

Mrs Tabram, who suffered from depression, claimed she used the 
illegal drug as a mild painkiller, and that many synthetic medicines 
were actually harmful to people.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman