A Romanian court has sentenced American rapper Wiz Khalifa to nine months in prison after ruling that he smoked cannabis on stage during a music festival last year.

The Constanța Court of Appeal overturned an earlier penalty that fined the artist 3,600 Romanian lei (£619; $829) for drug possession, replacing it with a custodial sentence. The ruling was delivered in absentia, as the rapper was not present in Romania at the time.

Wiz Khalifa, whose real name is Thomaz Cameron Jibril, admitted to smoking a joint during his performance at the Beach, Please! Festival in Costinești in July 2024. Police briefly detained and questioned him after the show, before prosecutors charged him with possession of “risk drugs” for personal use.

Investigators said Jibril was found with more than 18 grams of cannabis and consumed an additional quantity on stage. In their written judgment, appeal court judges said the earlier fine failed to reflect the seriousness of the act.

They described the incident as an “ostentatious act” that sent a “message of normalisation of illegal conduct”, particularly troubling because it took place at a festival popular with young people. The court said the rapper encouraged drug use by consuming cannabis in front of an audience “predominantly made up of very young people”.

The artist has continued to perform internationally. Earlier this week he appeared on stage in California with rapper Gunna and has since shared images and videos from his home on Twitch and social media platforms.

A day after the incident, Jibril said on X that he did not intend to offend Romania, adding that authorities had treated him respectfully. “I’ll be back soon,” he wrote, “but without a big ass joint next time.”

Romanian criminologist Vlad Zaha said that the likelihood of the sentence being enforced was extremely low. He described the ruling as “unusually harsh” and said the US was unlikely to extradite the artist, given his status, wealth and the differing legal and political treatment of cannabis in the United States.

Wiz Khalifa, a ten-time Grammy nominee known for hits including Black and Yellow, See You Again and Young, Wild & Free, has long associated his public image with cannabis use and launched his own marijuana brand in 2016.

While cannabis is legal for recreational or medical use in several US states, it remains illegal in Romania and under US federal law. (AriseNews TV)