Romanian court cancels Wiz Khalifa's prison sentence over festival joint

A Romanian appeals court has wiped out the nine-month prison sentence imposed on American rapper Wiz Khalifa for smoking cannabis on stage at the Beach, Please! festival in 2024. On 3 November the Bucharest Court of Appeal admitted a motion to annul filed by his lawyers, cancelling the December 2025 ruling that ordered him to serve time and the warrant issued to enforce it, according to the national news agency AGERPRES.

The case is not over. The court sent it back to the appeal stage and set a new hearing for 12 November, where it will again weigh the prosecutors' challenge to the original, much lighter penalty: a fine. For now, the most visible cannabis prosecution in Romania has returned to square one on appeal, in a country that still treats possession for personal use as a crime.

How a fine became a prison term

The case began on the night of 13–14 July 2024 in Costinești, a resort on the Black Sea coast in Constanța County. Police detained the rapper, whose legal name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, after he lit a joint during his set. Prosecutors from DIICOT, the directorate that handles organised crime and drug cases, said he held 18.53 grams of cannabis plus a cannabis cigarette. He was charged with possessing "risk drugs" for personal use, released, and left the country. He was indicted that autumn.

In April 2025 the Constanța Tribunal fined him 3,600 lei, about $830. DIICOT appealed, arguing the penalty was too lenient. On 18 December 2025 the Constanța Court of Appeal replaced the fine with nine months in prison to be served, in a ruling issued in his absence. AGERPRES reported that the court relied on Article 4(1) of Law 143/2000, Romania's drug-control statute. Mediafax said the judges pointed to the public setting and the size of the crowd, and The Marijuana Herald, citing BBC reporting, said the court saw the act as normalising illegal behaviour in front of a young audience.

A string of failed challenges, then a reversal

His first attempts to undo the sentence went nowhere. In February 2026 the Constanța Court of Appeal threw out an annulment motion as inadmissible and refused to suspend the sentence, AP and G4Media reported. In May, Mediafax reported that the High Court of Cassation and Justice had rejected his cassation appeal, leaving the conviction final and the warrant enforceable. The same report noted that recent Criminal Code changes let prosecutors charge convicts who fail to surrender within seven days of a warrant with evasion.

The turn came through a further motion to annul. According to HotNews, the rapper asked for that motion to be moved away from Constanța, and the High Court assigned it to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. That court admitted the motion on 3 November. None of the reports we reviewed set out the legal ground the judges accepted; the written reasoning had not been reported at publication.

Romania's courts have now reached three different answers on the same 18 grams: a fine, prison, and a retrial. That is not a legal regime anyone can plan around.

What Romanian law says

Romania criminalises possession of cannabis for personal use. According to AP, the offence carries three months to two years in prison or a fine, which places Romania among the harsher regimes in Europe. Mediafax noted that many other countries either do not prosecute similar small amounts or handle them as administrative matters.

Medical access remains stalled. A bill known as the Victoria Law, named after the late mother of campaigner Alexandra Cîrstea, was filed in 2019 to allow doctors to prescribe cannabis products dispensed through pharmacies. The Senate passed it tacitly at the end of that year, and it has sat in the Chamber of Deputies since, Puterea reported. In October 2026 Euronews Romania said the bill had still not been adopted, and described the case of a UK-prescribed Crohn's patient whose medicine was seized at the border in 2024, returned after he won in court, and seized again by gendarmes within the hour. He now faces a criminal investigation.

Out of step with its neighbours

The contrast with other EU states keeps growing. Germany legalised possession of up to 25 grams and home growing of up to three plants on 1 April 2024, with supply through non-profit cultivation associations rather than shops, Al Jazeera reported. Berlin has since been working on a tighter medical cannabis law: as of early 2026 the bill was in the Bundestag, with in-person consultations and limits on mail-order flower among the proposed changes, according to Business of Cannabis and German cannabis company Cansativa.

Czechia moved on 1 January 2026. Adults 21 and older may now keep up to 100 grams at home, carry up to 25 grams and grow three plants, NORML reported, though commercial sales are still penalised. Euronews Romania counts nearly 30 European states that allow medical cannabis in some form.

Why it matters beyond one rapper

For Romania's festival and live-events business, the case has been an awkward advertisement: a headline act prosecuted, sentenced to prison in absentia and placed under an enforceable warrant over a small quantity for personal use. For cannabis and CBD companies eyeing the country, it is a reminder that enforcement remains criminal, unpredictable and willing to escalate on appeal. Whether Romanian authorities ever sought to enforce the warrant abroad is unclear; AP said it was uncertain whether they would seek extradition of a US citizen who does not live in Romania.

What to watch

The 12 November hearing in Bucharest is the next marker. The court will reconsider DIICOT's appeal, with the rapper's lawyer notified and arrangements made for him to appear by video, AGERPRES reported. Prosecutors can again press for jail; the defence can argue for the fine to stand. Beyond the case, watch the Chamber of Deputies for any movement on the long-stalled medical cannabis bill, and Germany's medical cannabis reform as a benchmark for how far the region's rules are drifting apart.