Wiz Khalifa has been sentenced to nine months in prison for “possession of dangerous drugs”.
Last year, the rapper – real name Cameron Thomaz – was arrested and charged after smoking weed on stage at a music festival in Romania, where cannabis is illegal for recreational use. He was serving as a headliner for the Beach Please! Festival in Black Sea Coast in Julu, and, during his performance, took a moment to smoke a joint while Dr. Dre‘s ‘The Next Episode’ played in the background.
Shortly after the set, footage of the rapper being arrested at the festival began circulating, with Khalifa later taking to his official X/Twitter account to apologise. “Last nights show was amazing. I didn’t mean any disrespect to the country of Romania by lighting up on stage.
“They were very respectful and let me go. I’ll be back soon. But without a big ass joint next time,” he added.
Per The Independent, prosecutors said he was found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis. The Constanta Court of Appeal handed down the sentence after Khalifa was convicted of “possession of dangerous drugs, without right, for personal consumption,” according to Romania’s national news agency, Agerpres, with the decision said to be final.
It arrives after a lower court in Constanta County issued Khalifa a criminal fine of 3,600 lei ($830) for “illegal possession of dangerous drugs” back in April, but prosecutors appealed the court’s decision and sought a higher sentence.
In a written decision, the Constanța Court of Appeal judges said they overturned the original fine because the artist had sent “a message of normalisation of illegal conduct” and thereby encouraged “drug use among young people”.
Calling it an “ostentatious act”, the judges said the rapper was “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”.
A Romanian criminologist, Vlad Zaha, has since weighed in on the situation, telling the BBC that there was little to no chance of the US extraditing Khalifa.
“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,” he said, adding that “a formal judicial request will be submitted to the United States.”
