NAN MACKENZIE meets a respectable grandma who smokes a joint every night before bed and calls for the legalisation of medical marijuana and the decriminalising of cannabis use.

A teenager’s appeal to have his request to use a cannabis-based medicine has been approved, three days before he finally succumbed to cancer.

The youngster had been pleading with the Health Ministry for two years to allow him to take the drug to ease his suffering but his request was only granted three days before he died.

The 19-year-old’s tragic case began when the medication he was taking at the time – to help ease his suffering – were not taking effect. He had previously been diagnosed with an incurable and inoperable brain tumour.

It was then that his doctors recommended that he make a request to the Health Ministry to allow him to take medicine – banned in Cyprus because it contains cannabis.

A British man in Paphos has been taken into custody after police discovered that he had ordered illegal drugs online with the use of the bitcoin digital currency to pay for mail delivery.

The 23-year-old expart had visited an underground social forum where he was able to use bitcoin credit to pay for his order, said to be 30 grams of cannabis.

The order was processed in Canada where the illegal drugs were sealed in an envelope and were delivered to the suspect in Konia community in Cyprus.

Local police had been informed about the delivery and were on the lookout for the man picking up the package. It is believed that the sealed envelope was protected in such a way that it would not have been easy for someone to know its contents inside.

The surge in the number of synthetic cannabis being seized by the Turkish Cypriot police is a concern, according to media reports on Monday.

The drug – and especially the brand ‘Bonsai’ – is said to be highly addictive and is known to cause mental disorders, severe hallucinations, violent behaviour, and even heart attacks.

Figures for 2014 showed that around five kilos of ‘Bonsai’ were apprehended in the north, whilst the figure nearly doubled in 2015. Five people are said to have died after overdosing on the synthetic cannabis which is often termed spice.

Due to its low selling price and extreme high, the drug has become popular amongst youths, particularly in Turkey.

A 19-year-old cancer patient made three requests to receive medical cannabis but permission to use the drug was only given by the health minister a few days before he died.

The young man who died last Saturday had supported his requests with medical evidence as well as a doctor’s prescription as he needed the medicine for pain relief while receiving chemotherapy. As the use of medical cannabis is not allowed in Cyprus, he appealed directly to the health minister. The Cyprus Mail asked the health ministry why it took so long to sign the request.

Anslow was at the head of a major drugs ring, which sold and distributed cocaine and cannabis across the West Midlands.

The 35-year-old became Britain’s most wanted man when he was violently and dramatically sprung from a prison van outside HMP Hewell near Redditch to Stafford Crown Court.

He then went on the run to Northern Cyprus.

While still at large, Anslow, of St Mark's Road, Tipton, was found guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine and cannabis and sentenced to 22 years behind bars in September 2012.

Yesterday (THURS) he challenged his convictions at London's Criminal Appeal Court, with his lawyers arguing the trial should not have been held in his absence and that the judge misdirected the jury.