An offender seeking to mitigate objective culpability on the basis of the combined effect of a prescription drug and alcohol bears the onus of proving that circumstance on the balance of probabilities, and must adduce evidence as to the circumstances of the prescription, dosage, monitoring and medical advice regarding the interaction of the drug with alcohol. Vague or confused evidence on these matters will not discharge the onus. JIRS statistics, while of some indicative value, suffer from the limitation that they are based on an undifferentiated case basis that does not distinguish between pleas of guilty and not guilty, or between different antecedent histories.
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