The stage of development of a cannabis crop at the time of arrest has little or no bearing on the culpability of the offence of cultivation. Where an offender's unchallenged admissions in a record of interview establish that the offender conducted a cannabis cultivation operation, the sentencing judge is entitled to sentence on the basis that the offender was a principal, even where surrounding circumstances suggest the involvement of others. Inappropriate cultural observations by a sentencing judge about an ethnic community do not vitiate the sentencing discretion where the general deterrence analysis is directed at the community generally rather than at a specific ethnic group.
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