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American professional basketball player Brittney Griner is currently incarcerated in Russia for possession of cannabis vape cartridges. As the White House demands her release and accuses Russia of wrongfully detaining her, Russia is using this situation to point out that in most of the United States, Griner would have been incarcerated as well due to the fact cannabis is a Schedule I banned substance, equal in the eyes of the law to heroin and ecstasy.
There is no possible doubt that Griner was in possession of the cannabis oil, as she pleaded guilty to drug possession charges. She claims that she packed for travel to Moscow to play basketball in a hurry, and she did not intend to bring the marijuana along. She has now been in custody of the Russian justice system for five months.
There are two Americans currently imprisoned in Russia which are the center of attention for both the media and the U.S. government: Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, incarcerated on charges of espionage. “We will not relent until Brittney, Paul Whelan, and all other wrongfully detained Americans are reunited with their loved ones,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The Biden Administration prepared plans for prisoner exchanges, being willing to release Russian arms trader Viktor Bout for the release of Whelan and Griner, and nobody else.
Brittney Griner is not the first or only American citizen held prisoner in Russia specifically for simple marijuana possession. American teacher Marc Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in prison in Moscow for possessing medical marijuana; the verdict came in June 2022, four months after Griner was arrested, yet he is never mentioned by American leadership. American teenager Audrey Lorber was incarcerated in St. Petersburg for minor possession of marijuana too. American-Israeli woman Naama Issachar spent 10 months in Russian prison until public outcry led to a pardon from Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Those are just some of the most recent cases, and they all received much less attention than Griner did. There is little doubt that the importance given by the Biden Administration to Griner’s case is due to the athlete’s fame as a champion of the Women's National Basketball Association and two-times Olympic gold medalist.
The American Response
President Joe Biden became personally involved in the Griner case. He penned her a handwritten letter, which was passed to her during her trial by U.S. officials, and he promised to obtain her release during a personal phone call with Brittney Griner’s wife.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We believe that the Russian Federation has wrongfully detained Brittney Griner.” She continued: “We are going to do everything that we can—the president has this top of mind—to make sure that we get Brittney home safely… and also Paul Whelan.”
Hypocrisy is the word around which this entire saga is structured. Erik Altieri, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), called out the unjust treatment that Griner was subjected to in Russia, but he added: “It should also cause a level of reflection amongst our lawmakers considering that a large number of states still inflict similar penalties for marijuana possession on our own soil and the current federal policy of marijuana prohibition isn’t notably different than the stance held by Putin’s regime in Russia.”
As sad a state of affairs as this is, it is absolutely correct. Brittney Griner is Texan. In her own home state of Texas, she would have been arrested and tried for possession of the cannabis oil cartridges. Texas law makes the amount of oil in her possession a felony passible of up to 20 years in prison. Russian law is in fact much more forgiving than Texan law on the matter, as Russia can “only” incarcerate people for up to 15 years for possession.
American law enforcement arrests more people every year for benign possession of marijuana alone than for all violent crimes combined. Russian law enforcement is comparatively laissez-faire compared to the unhinged anti-cannabis obsession of the American so-called “justice” system.
Russian officials did not pass up the chance to point out the hypocrisy of the Biden Administration: “This is a serious offense, confirmed by indisputable evidence. Attempts to present the case as if the American was detained illegally do not hold up,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexei Zaitsev said. “The law has been violated, and arguments about the innocent nature of Griner’s addiction, which, by the way, is punishable in some U.S. states, are inappropriate in this case.”
As painful as this truth might be to the ego of America, it is plainly true. If Griner had been in her own hometown, American law does demand that she be treated even worse than what Russia did to her. Every single year, half-a-million Americans are arrested, jailed, tried and often incarcerated by American law enforcement for simple marijuana possession in the U.S. But these hundreds of thousands of innocents wrongfully imprisoned in America, because of American laws, do not benefit from the same support from the Biden Administration
The criminalization of marijuana in Russia did not originate in Russia at all, but in the U.S. When America ended Prohibition of alcohol, it needed a new boogeyman to criminalize and imprison racial minorities within its own borders. Marijuana was that boogeyman. The architect of marijuana prohibition in the entire world was American Prohibition enforcer Harry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. America then forcefully exported its anti-cannabis frenzy throughout the world.
“The U.S. exported the drug war across the globe and Brittney Griner is the latest high-profile victim of these policies,” Maritza Perez, director of the office of national affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance, said In an interview with cannabis-centric media Marijuana Moment. “Just like the U.S. set the drug war precedent, it must be the leader in dismantling its harms. Ending federal marijuana prohibition is a common-sense first step. If marijuana had been legalized in the U.S., this country would be better positioned to fight for her release and other countries would undoubtedly also move away from drug war policies like marijuana prohibition.”
The Biden Administration’s dedication to the release of Brittney Griner is undoubtedly a good thing. But the fact that the motivation to protect a marijuana user is directly dependent on the wealth and fame of that user is a problem. The good will shown towards Griner should be universal while millions of Americans in the same situation as Griner in American prisons do not benefit from Joe Biden’s sudden empathy for people incarcerated for possessing marijuana. Biden could issue a blanket pardon to every single person convicted of marijuana possession today. A simple presidential signature would save millions of American lives and end the American hypocrisy in the Griner case. He chooses not to do that. Yet, to make the Biden Administration’s stance on Griner’s release coherent, cannabis reform in the U.S. is mandatory.
