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Pat Tabram - or "Cannabis Grandma" as she has been dubbed by the media - may only have a few days left before she could be sent to jail. But the sixty-five-year-old from the sleepy Northumberland village of Humshaugh is still adamant that, no matter what the outcome of her sentencing on Friday, she will continue to cook with what she calls her miracle herb. "The police have told me I could go to prison for 14 years, and I said: 'So what'. It's time we realised in this country that there's more danger from people using NHS medicines than cannabis."

What started as a means of easing the aches and pains of herself and a few other disabled OAPs through a pooling of resources (and recipes for chicken pie, sweetcorn soup and chocolate cake) has not only led to police raids and a high-profile court case for possession with intent to supply; it has now become Grandma's one-woman mission to legalise cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Behind the fervent activity lies Grandma's even more fervent belief that cannabis provides better pain relief than conventional medicines, without the risks. She hands me her "evidence": lists of possible side effects photocopied from the information leaflets of prescription drugs, mainly painkillers. Tens of side effects are listed, from impotence, heart problems and nausea, to depression. And she points to suggesting that 10,000 people die as a result of taking pharmaceutical drugs. All the above is set out in a letter which Grandma has sent to every MP in the Commons, as well as trying to deliver one to Number Ten. She even brought her favourite home-made cannabis hot chocolate with her, but was turned away because she didn't have an appointment.

But what really prompted Grandma to start using cannabis was her own experiences. Suffering from whiplash in her neck and arthritis in her knees, she was on a range of prescribed painkillers and drugs which she says left her bedridden and too depressed to go out. "I was suicidal when I was on NHS medication. I ended up lying in bed planning how I could die. My skin was so bad, so rough and pink, that my face looked like a cobblestone path, and I had to start wearing a hearing aid because I developed Tinnitus. I also lost the hair on the top of my head through the painkillers - they tell you it can cause that - and got tinnitus, which a lot of medicines cause. I'd wake up in the mornings with bruises on my legs." A concerned friend came round and offered her a spliff, and she was impressed by its pain-relieving and mood-boosting effects. Soon, she had found a supplier and started experimenting with recipes. "After I started taking cannabis, I started going out again, and I didn't need to use my neck collar or my walking stick. It dulled the pain in my knees, I didn't have as many red lumps on my face, and it even dulled the ringing noise in my ears, so I don't use my hearing aid anymore. Neighbours were saying, 'God, you're looking great, Pat!'"

The modest bungalow inhabited by Grandma, her blind dog Trudy and stacks of books about wholefood cookery, belies the fact that these are the headquarters from which Grandma's launch into the fast lane is planned. She's putting the finishing touches to her website, www.grandma-eats-cannabis.com, which is due to launch on Friday - whether or not she's is around to see it. And an autobiography, TV documentary and cookery book are all being negotiated.

As we sit down to lunch - a stunning curry made fresh by Grandma this morning (she used to be a chef, so she knows what she's doing, and she's promised it has no added extras) - the phone rings non-stop. First, the Trisha show wants to know if she will come on to talk about drugs. "If she's taking me on there to make a fool of me, she's picking on the wrong old lady," says Grandma. Then Richard and Judy call to offer her some work presenting slots on their programme about disabled people using cannabis for pain relief. "I've just been offered a job by Richard and Judy!" she cries, as her son turns up with flowers to comfort his Mum ahead of Friday's ordeal. "It's hard work, all the media stuff," she tells me, "but I do it for all those people out there who I know need cannabis for their pain."

Then there's the politics. The Legalise Cannabis Alliance discovered Grandma after her court appearance last summer, and, with a wave of media publicity in her wake, she proved a godsend for the party. She has now become an official LCA candidate in the upcoming election, standing for the same Welsh constituency as Commons leader Peter Hain. "They told me, 'you're our face of middle England!'" she beams.

Three friends with MS and one with arthritis have also, she says, experienced "extraordinary" effects after the group started baking with cannabis, and are now free from taking the numerous pills they formerly had to remember each day. She says one man, whose fingers were so curled he could not hold a spoon, can now feed himself. A further 140 disabled people have written to Grandma following her first appearance on Richard and Judy last month, asking for recipe ideas.

But with pharmaceutical companies in the process of testing cannabis treatments such as sprays for disabled people, there are those who argue that the drug will be available in some form sooner or later, for those who genuinely need it for medical reasons. Grandma remains defiant: "Us cannabis users don't want it chemicalised and interfered with. I want it pure - I don't want the side effects, and when you chemicalise anything that's what you get," she says. "The only bad effects with cannabis are if you take too much, then it'll make you sick and you'll sleep. But I use less than the amount in one spliff over a whole day - and if I put it into five dishes a day, each one gives me five hours pain relief, so that's the whole 24 hours covered."

In the meantime, Grandma insists that a prison sentence won't stop her, and neither will a fine. "If the judge on Friday fines me, and asks how I'm going to pay, I'll say: 'Your honour, I won't pay it. Not for a legal system which criminalises an OAP like me'.

"Cannabis was well known as a painkiller for thousands of years - Queen Victoria used it for her period pains, and what was good enough for her is good enough for me."

Cannabis use remains a contentious issue. This article contains the personal views and experiences of Pat Tabram, and does not necessarily represent the views of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. The related links below provide more information on cannabis and offer a broader viewpoint on the subject.