A Romanian court has sentenced American rapper Wiz Khalifa, real name Thomaz Cameron Jibril, to nine months in prison for smoking cannabis on stage during his performance at the Beach, Please! festival in Costinesti last year. Jibril had admitted to partaking in the act of smoking a joint during his set, and an appeals court in Romania overturned an earlier fine of 3,600 Romanian lei (£619; $829) for drug possession.
However, the sentence was handed down in absentia, as Jibril was performing with Gunna in California earlier this week. On Thursday, he shared pictures and clips from his home on streaming platform Twitch and social media.
The Constanța Court of Appeal judges, in their written decision, overturned the initial fine due to the artist's "message of normalizing illegal conduct" and thereby encouraging "drug use among young people." Calling it an "ostentatious act," the judges described Jibril as a "music performer, on the stage of a music festival well-known among young people," who "possessed and consumed, in front of a large audience predominantly made up of very young people, an artisanal cigarette."
In a post on X a day after the incident, Jibril explained that he did not mean to offend the country. "They [the authorities] were very respectful and let me go. I'll be back soon. But without a big ass joint next time," he joked.
Romanian criminologist Vlad Zaha told BBC News that there is little-to-no chance of Jibril being extradited to Romania due to his wealth and connections. He described the sentence as "unusually harsh." "Given the defendant's wealth and connections, Romania's lack of real negotiating power on extradition, and the legal and political status of cannabis in the US, it is highly unlikely that Wiz Khalifa will be sent to serve a prison sentence in Constanța, even though a formal judicial request will be submitted to the United States," Zaha said.
The artist, known for songs like "Black and Yellow," "See You Again," and "Young, Wild & Free," is often pictured smoking on his social media and founded his own marijuana brand in 2016. While cannabis is legal for recreational and medical use in some US states, it remains illegal under federal law.
