A sentencing judge's personal views about whether drug-related offending should be treated as a medical rather than criminal problem are irrelevant to the sentencing exercise and cannot be used to subvert the legislative will expressed in maximum penalties. On a Crown appeal, extraordinary rehabilitation progress by a released offender may justify the Court exercising its discretion not to return the offender to custody, even where the original sentence was manifestly inadequate, but such an exercise of discretion is exceptional.
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