Wiz Khalifa In Jail For Smoking on Stage

American rapper, whose real name is Thomaz Cameron Jibril, famously known as Wiz Khalifa has been sentenced to nine months in prison by a Romanian court for smoking cannabis during a live performance.

The rapper admitted to smoking a joint while performing at the Beach, Please! festival last year in Costinesti.

A Romanian appeals court overturned an earlier fine of 3,600 Romanian lei (£619; $829) for drug possession and ruled that the rapper must serve the sentence in custody. However, he was sentenced in absentia. Earlier this week, he was seen performing on stage with Gunna in California.

On Thursday, he shared pictures and clips from his home on the streaming platform Twitch and social media.

The BBC has approached the ten-time Grammy-nominated artist for comment.

After the concert on 13 July 2024, police briefly held and questioned Jibril. Prosecutors later charged him with possession of “risk drugs” for personal use. Romanian investigators said he had more than 18 grams of cannabis in his possession and consumed additional amounts on stage.

In a written decision, the Constanta 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 added that 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.”

Jibril wrote on X a day after the incident: “They [the authorities] were very respectful and let me go. I’ll be back soon. But without a big ass joint next time.”

Romanian criminologist Vlad Zaha told BBC News that there was little chance of the US extraditing Jibril. 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 Constanta, even though a formal judicial request will be submitted to the United States,” Mr Zaha said.

The artist, known for hits like Black and Yellow, See You Again, and Young, Wild & Free, often shares images of himself smoking on social media and founded his own marijuana brand in 2016.

Cannabis is legal for recreational and medical use in some US states but remains illegal under federal law.