'I use cannabis as medicine': the US basketball player facing execution in Indonesia over $400 of gummies [View all]

Source: The Guardian

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

Unlike his fellow basketball player Brittney Griner, Jarred Shaw has received scant attention after being arrested for a drugs offence overseas

Mattha Busby
Fri 3 Oct 2025 10.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 3 Oct 2025 13.09 BST

When Jarred Shaw, an American basketball player in Indonesia, stepped down to the lobby in his apartment complex earlier this year to collect a package containing illegally imported cannabis gummies, he thought that the medicine to ease his Crohn’s disease had arrived.

It had – but so too had 10 undercover police officers. A video on social media shows Shaw, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, shouting for help as the swarm of officers move to apprehend him.

The 35-year-old from Dallas, Texas, is facing 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 has scored more than 1,000 points over three seasons in the country. But now he is languishing in pre-trial detention and is banned for life from the IBL.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/oct/03/jarred-shaw-drugs-arrest-indonesia-basketball