Wiz Khalifa has been sentenced to nine months in prison in Romania following an appeal tied to a marijuana possession case stemming from a concert appearance last year, according to reporting from BBC News.
The ruling relates to a July 2024 performance in the seaside town of Costinești, where the Pittsburgh-born rapper, whose legal name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was briefly detained after authorities said he smoked marijuana onstage during a music festival. Marijuana remains illegal under Romanian law, and prosecutors charged him with possession of a controlled substance for personal use.
A lower court initially imposed a fine of about 3,000 lei, roughly $700, concluding that the offense warranted a monetary penalty rather than jail time. Prosecutors later appealed that decision, arguing that the public nature of the incident justified a harsher sentence. The appeal was handled by Romania’s organized crime prosecutor’s office, DIICOT, which oversees drug-related cases.
Romania’s Constanța Court of Appeal ultimately overturned the fine and replaced it with a nine-month prison sentence, issued in absentia. In its written decision, the court said Khalifa’s actions sent what it described as a message normalizing illegal behavior, particularly in front of a young audience at a festival popular with teenagers and young adults.
Despite the ruling, legal experts say it is highly unlikely the artist will ever serve the sentence. Extradition for nonviolent drug offenses involving foreign nationals is rare, especially when the defendant resides in a country where marijuana laws differ significantly. Khalifa remains in the United States, and Romanian authorities have not indicated that extradition efforts are expected to succeed.
Criminologist Vlad Zaha described the sentence as unusually harsh, noting that Romania has limited leverage in attempting to enforce such a ruling abroad. Khalifa has not publicly commented on the decision, and there is no indication the case will have any immediate legal impact on his ability to tour internationally outside Romania.
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