This story's still running...
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archiv ... ridge.html
and most recently:Newcastle Chronicle, April 19, 2007
Cannabis gran Patricia Tabram is appealing against her conviction. The 68-year-old, of Humshaugh, Northumberland, was found guilty of cultivating and possessing the class C substance in March. She claims she uses the drug as a pain reliever to treat a neck complaint sparked by two car crashes and denied the charges against her.
But a judge ordered Mrs Tabram to do 250 hours' unpaid work and pay £1,000 costs after a jury convicted her at Carlisle Crown Court. And despite being warned she faces eviction from her housing association bungalow and a spell behind bars, she told the Chronicle she would continue using the drug.
Now, we can reveal she has lodged papers with London's Court of Appeal in a bid to have the conviction overturned. A judge has not been allocated to her case yet and a hearing is still set to be arranged.
Mrs Tabram began using cannabis to relieve the neck pain she had suffered for many years as the result of two car crashes. She claims prescribed medicines make her ill and without cannabis she would be in agony and unable to sleep. When police raided her house in 2005 they found cannabis plants growing in her wardrobe and jars of powdered cannabis in kitchen cupboards. Mrs Tabram told the Chronicle she takes 0.1g of cannabis five times a day. She said: "I soak it in whatever I'm going to use it in, cream, milk, butter, or oil for 24 hours then I cook with it in cakes, casseroles or hot chocolate."
[...] While she admits growing her own cannabis, Mrs Tabram swears she would never sell it to anyone else.