Where an offender suffers from serious psychiatric illness that both caused the offending and would be exacerbated by imprisonment, the Tsiaras principles require careful consideration and may render imprisonment inappropriate even for cultivation of a commercial quantity of cannabis, notwithstanding the general rule that such offences require immediate custodial sentences. General deterrence has almost no part to play where the offender is not an appropriate vehicle for it due to mental illness. The considerations that reduce moral culpability (impaired judgment, inability to appreciate wrongfulness) are also likely to reduce the weight to be given to general deterrence.
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