‘I use cannabis as medicine’: the US basketball player facing execution in Indonesia over $400 of gummies | Basketball

When Jarred Shaw, an American basketball player in Indonesia, resigned in the hall of his apartment complex earlier this year to collect a package containing illegally imported cannabis gums, he thought that the drug to relieve his Crohn’s disease had arrived.

There were – but there were also 10 infiltrated police officers. A video on social networks shows Shaw, carrying a black t-shirt and shorts, shouting with help while the swarm of the officers moves to understand it.

The 35 -year -old man from Dallas, Texas, faces the possibility of the death penalty or a long spell behind bars. He was a key member of Prawira Bandung, who won the Indonesian basketball league (IBL) in 2023, and he scored more than 1,000 points in three seasons in the country. But now he languishes in prior detention and is prohibited for the life of the IBL.

“I use cannabis as a drug,” he told the Guardian on the phone from a prison just outside the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in his first comments to the press since his arrest. “I have an inflammatory condition called Crohn’s disease which is incurable. There is no drug apart from cannabis that leads my stomach to hurt. ”

During the dead, Shaw lives in Thailand, where cannabis is subject to more liberal laws. He said he had endured the pain of doing without cannabis in the previous campaigns in Indonesia, but says that health reasons prompted him to import the intercepted supply of 132 gummies this year. “I made a stupid mistake,” he said.

But this error should not justify the death penalty or a long spell in prison, he said. “There are people who tell me that I am about to spend the rest of my life in prison for edible products,” he said. “I have never experienced such such.” During the first two months after his arrest, he was at the “lowest point of [my] Life “and in a” really dark mental place “.

“I felt helpless and alone,” he says. “I didn’t want to wake up anymore.” But by prayer and his faith, as well as access to a prison gymnasium, he begins to feel again, even if the 6 -foot athlete 11 inches shares a small cell with a dozen men. “I have just been 35 years old but I still feel young,” explains the former basketball in the state of Utah, who played in Argentina, Japan, Turkey, Thailand and Tunisia. “I would love to continue my basketball career.”

Shaw, who plays as a center or forward, says that cannabis helps to alleviate anxiety and depression, as well as Crohn’s insomnia and pain. “I don’t use it to have fun and party,” he said. “With my stomach state, it is sometimes difficult for me to keep the food or go to the toilet. It soothes the pain a little. “

Indonesia takes a hard line on drugs and carried out executions in 2016, dismissing the squad, an Indonesian and three foreigners found guilty of drugs. More than 500 people – including nearly 100 foreigners – are in the death corridor in the country, mainly for drug -related crimes.

Indonesian police said Shaw had sent SMS to his teammates saying that he would share some of the cannabis candies with them. “What they consider drugs, I consider medicine,” said Shaw. “These are only different cultures.”

After the arrest of Shaw, Ronald Sipayung, the police chief at Soekarno-Hatta airport, told journalists that the American could risk life in life or even the death penalty if he was found guilty. “We are still carrying out the investigation to discover the international network of drugs behind this case and to stop its distribution,” said Sipayung.

Shaw was quickly paraded at a press conference, appearing with his hands to handcuff with a T-shirt on Orange prison program and a black facial mask. He stood with his back to the public while the police chiefs exhibited the ranges of cannabis, which weigh 869 grams in total and earned $ 400.

He said that to charge him with possession of almost a kilo of cannabis is unfair and “sick”, since most of the weight is made up of the gummies themselves rather than by the cannabis content. “I have been charged for almost a kilo,” he said. “I had nothing nearby.”

Shaw collects funds to cover its growing legal costs. He has not yet appeared in court despite his judgment five months ago, and he is still waiting for a first date of appearance. “They give the impression that I am this big drug trafficker,” he said. “Why could I bring the candies here to sell?” It was for personal use. “

Stephanie Shepard, director of defenders of Last Prison Project (LPP), who campaigns for the liberation of people imprisoned for cannabis -related offenses, said: “The case of Jarred is not an isolated incident. Around the world, people are serving extreme sentences for non -violent cannabis crimes that do not threaten public security. ” Even in the United States, she added, tens of thousands of people are incarcerated for infractions to cannabis despite recreational legalization in almost half of the states and a medical lamp in both. “These punishments are contrary to international human rights standards,” said Shepard.

The potential efficiency of cannabis on Crohn’s disease is sub-studied, but in September, the journal Nature Medicine published an article on a study which revealed that cannabis can alleviate chronic lower back pain without serious side effects. It came when Donald Trump talked about the advantages of cannabis -based drugs.

There are parallels between the case of Shaw and that of Brittney Griner, the decorated American basketball player who was imprisoned in Russia for 10 months in 2022 after the authorities found cannabis vape cartridges in his luggage. Griner was finally released as part of an exchange of prisoners involving a trafficker of Russian weapons.

“Jarred has always been one of the most generous and disinterested people you can meet,” said his friend, Bree Petruzio, on Shaw’s fundraising page. “Jarred made a mistake. But I don’t think this error should cost him all his future.”

The United States Embassy in Jakarta says it is aware of the Shaw case but would not comment more.

Donte West, a plea assistant at LPP who manages the case of Shaw, said: “Cannabis cannot kill you, but possess it may. We must draw so much attention to this case in the hope that a positive resolution will put a powerful precedent.