The US State Department has declared a US citizen who has been imprisoned in Russia for three years on drug smuggling charges is “wrongfully detained.” Marc Fogel, a history teacher from Butler County, PA, was arrested in August 2021 as he returned to Russia for his tenth year teaching there. Fogel had 17 grams of cannabis, which he alleges was obtained by prescription for treating chronic back pain. The Russians looked at it as drug possession and smuggling. They had a point.
He’d packed 14 vape cartridges of medical marijuana into his suitcase, stuffing some in his shoes, and placed some cannabis buds in a contact lens case, his wife said. Jane said she had no idea he’d done it. But why take such a risk?
“It’s pretty simple,” his son Ethan said of his father’s plan to bring medical marijuana into Russia. “He thought he could get away with it.”
(Thanks for the support, son.)
That escapade resulted in the globetrotting expatriate drawing a 14-year prison sentence.
Fogel was not included in the December 2022 US-Russia prisoner swap involving WNBA player Brittney Griner, but Marc Fogel was; see BREAKING: Brittney Griner Released From Russian Prison After Controversial Prisoner Swap.
In August 2024, another prisoner swap between Russia and the US freed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva (BREAKING: Russia Releases Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan As Part of Massive Prisoner Exchange), but not Marc Fogel; see ‘Gut Wrenching’: Family of Marc Fogel, Who Biden ‘Left Behind’ in Russia, Blasts Prisoner Swap Deal. That last deal included British-Russian dual national political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, according to the State Department, “was not determined by this department to be wrongfully detained, but yet we were still able to secure his release last week.” […]
— Read More: redstate.com
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