Wiz Khalifa sentenced to 9 months in Romanian prison for drug possession

Wiz Khalifa was sentenced to nine months in prison Thursday by an appeals court in Romania for drug possession, in connection with his appearance at the Beach, Please! Festival in July 2024. During the performance, he was spotted smoking marijuana onstage and was reportedly found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis.

Police detained Khalifa, birth name Cameron Jibril Thomaz, after the concert and charged him with possession of risk drugs for personal use — an offense that can result in a fine or a prison sentence ranging from three months to two years under Romanian law. He was initially fined about $830, according to The Associated Press. However, prosecutors appealed and sought a harsher penalty.

Wiz’s nine-month sentence has been confirmed as “final and enforceable,” but according to a local journalist working with ABC News, he’s unlikely to serve time in prison — unless he returns to Romania or is extradited after Romanian authorities issue an international arrest warrant.

The court said the sentence was intended to set an example, as it argued Wiz had encouraged drug use among the youth.

“This very act of consuming such substances in public, by a person who, given his status as an international artist and his well-known influence over young people, represents ostentatious conduct that significantly amplifies the social danger of the offence,” the judges wrote in the written reasoning of the Constanța Court of Appeal. They added that Khalifa had “transmitted to the general public a message of normalisation of illegal conduct, tacitly encouraging tolerance of, and implicitly the consumption of, drugs among young people.”