​A senior British judge, ignoring new reduced drug sentencing guidelines, has jailed six men for growing marijuana.

Daily Mail. Judge Alan Goldsack (no, that’s really his name, man) criticized new regulations that became effective last week and ignored the Sentencing Council for England and Wales, reports Chris Brooke at the

Under the new sentencing guidelines, at least four of the six cannabis growers who were jailed at Sheffield Crown Court should probably have been given only “community penalties” not involving incarceration.

British tabloids have done everything they can to whip up reefer madness-style hysteria over so-called “skunk” cannabis, claiming its homegrown production in South Yorkshire, the area around Sheffield Crown Court, has supposedly become an “epidemic.” Judges there have been routinely jailing even low-level offenders “in an effort to clamp down on the industry,” the Daily Mail reports.

But the new guidelines specify a sentence range, if no more than nine plants are involved, from a conditional discharge to a medium-level community order, meaning no jail. Even where up to 28 plants are involved, the sentencing range is from a low-level community order up to 26 weeks in jail.