A Romanian court handed American rapper Wiz Khalifa a nine-month prison sentence for smoking cannabis on stage during a festival.
The court in Constanța overturned a previous fine of 3,600 lei (£619; $829) and ruled the sentence must be served in custody, though the rapper was sentenced in absentia. Khalifa, whose real name is Thomaz Cameron Jibril, performed at the Beach, Please! festival in Costinesti in July 2024 and admitted to smoking a joint during his set.
Images posted online show the ten-time Grammy-nominated artist performing with Gunna in California and sharing clips from his home on Twitch and social media this week. Police briefly detained Jibril after the concert and later charged him with possession of «risk drugs» for personal use, citing over 18 grams of cannabis found and additional consumption on stage.
In its ruling, the Constanța Court of Appeal criticised the rapper for sending «a message of normalisation of illegal conduct» and encouraging drug use among young people. Judges described the act as «ostentatious» and noted he performed in front of a predominantly young audience.
Following the incident, Khalifa said on X that he did not intend to offend Romania and thanked authorities for treating him respectfully.
Romanian criminologist Vlad Zaha told the BBC that extradition to Romania is highly unlikely due to the rapper’s wealth, US legal protections, and cannabis laws in the United States. Khalifa, known for hits including Black and Yellow, See You Again and Young, Wild & Free, has a long history of using cannabis publicly and founded his own marijuana brand in 2016.
While cannabis is legal for recreational and medical use in some US states, it remains prohibited under federal law.
