Yea, no...If you're going to cross into another country, make sure you respect the laws of said country. Next time she'll hopefully leave her drugs at home.
When you say “leave her drugs at home” and “she thought she was above the law”, you make it sound like she audaciously took a bag of weed with her. What she actually took was
cartridges containing less than a gram of medically prescribed hash oil
that she didn’t consider would be a problem. There is a difference, even if you’re unable to recognize that.
It should be common knowledge that you can't just bring prescribed medication into a foreign country. There is even plenty of OTC medication you can't bring into some countries.
Heck, in many places you can't even bring fruits, meat, or dairy. Not doing your due diligence before traveling is on the person traveling.
I don't think she deserves to be in prison for that and I would assume if relations with Russia at the time were better she would have just been denied entry/fined.
But breaking the law is still entirely on her and returning such a high profile prisoner in exchange for her mistake stings.
It’s not even entirely clear in her own country from state to state, it being medically prescribed confused the situation even more, get over yourself.
Further, she’s out, it’s over, all of you harping on it means nothing except you get to feel superior over a black athlete.
Probably both. An asshole who doesn’t understand or respect medicinal uses for cannabis, and a racist who judges POC more harshly than others for it.
No, that’s not a reasonable position.
Also, she didn’t choose the terms of her release, so again, your position seemly blaming her for who was traded isn’t reasonable. Also, if she wasn’t traded for him, Whelan probably would have been. And most likely you wouldn’t be complaining about that nearly as much, and you’d be perfectly happy letting her be in prison instead, which is why all your bullshit is most likely racist as hell.
The majority of what you said also applies to Whelan.
He was there for work (just like her) despite all the warnings, and his presence was even more of a risk as a reporter than as someone there to play for a basketball team.
Defense? I didn't realize I needed a defense. But if I do, mine would that Russias aw's laws are whatever they want to make them at any given time. Even the Russians know this.