Brittney Griner: jailed for nine years

[sputnik]

i think both that brittney griner should have known better than to travel to russia with any kind of cannabis product, and that russia is trumping up the charges and the sentence and using her as a political prisoner. hell, i wouldn't even fly with it domestically even if i was going from one state where it's legal to another where it's also legal, because federally it's not allowed and air travel is subject to federal law so technically you could get into trouble even if it's unlikely. but russia? yeah, no.
even if she didn't have drugs, she was in the country when the invasion was imminent and americans were being warned to stay out of the country. and yeah, wnba players don't make as much as the men but she still makes a very decent salary and didn't need to take the unnecessary risk of going to play in russia for more money at a time when she could easily be turned into a political prisoner and used as a pawn in the escalating conflict between DC and moscow.

[waterslide]

I agree with you on both points - she shouldn't have done it, but the charges are not about crime, they're about politics. I also agree that it was unnecessary for her to go play over there under the circumstances, especially being a high-profile US citizen and then, on top of that, not dump the illegal shit out of her bag before she got to the airport.

I accidentally brought an empty tube for pre-rolls to Cincinnati in my purse and had a mini-freak out just having that. My friends told me not to throw it away in the hotel room garbage can, so I dumped it somewhere else. I doubt anything would have happened to me (it was empty), but you never know, and I didn't want to get either of the people I was staying with in trouble either. And that's only two states away from me. But I go through every pocket when I'm travelling by air. I carry a knife with me most of the time, and I always make sure to leave that at home. You just have to be careful.

Anyway, I wonder how many people even think to go to the State Dept. web site (or whatever it would be called in your home country) to see what to be cautious about and where not to go. It's not that hard.

[panic]

Aug 25, 2022 20:50:10 GMT sputnik said:

even if she didn't have drugs, she was in the country when the invasion was imminent and americans were being warned to stay out of the country.

I remember when the Russians first started lining military tanks along the borders of Ukraine. I heard warnings on the news a lot during that period telling Americans it's not safe to go to Russia or Ukraine right now and that anyone still there would be advised to leave. Enter the next news story about an American schoolteacher in Ukraine interviewed about why she's not leaving. She was very smiley and happy, talking about how gratifying it was teaching school there, how much she loved teaching there, and she seemed very confident to just trust that everything was gonna be okay. She had no plans to leave and it wasn't long after that day that the bombing started and I still think of that woman and wonder if she ever left and if she hasn't, has she survived so far? I really hope she has.