US student fined 15,000 rubles and freed over 19 g of medical cannabis
A St Petersburg court fined 19-year-old American student Audrey Lorber 15,000 rubles for illegally possessing the 19.05 grams of cannabis found in her luggage at Pulkovo Airport and released her because of time already spent in detention. The court rejected her US medical-marijuana document as invalid in Russia.
🇷🇺 Moscow District Court, St Petersburg (arrest at Pulkovo Airport) · Russia
·
Arrested
1
Charged
1
Cannabis
19.05 g
Prison
time served (about two months in pre-trial detention)
A St Petersburg court found 19-year-old American student Audrey Eliza Lorber
guilty of illegal drug possession and fined her 15,000 rubles, about $235.[1]Because she had been held in pre-trial detention, the court released her from
serving the sentence and from custody.[2]Lorber, a film student at Pace
University in New York who lives on Staten Island, was travelling in St
Petersburg with her mother.[2]
She was searched at Pulkovo Airport and found with 19.05 grams of cannabis in
her belongings.[1]She had a US medical-marijuana document, and the St
Petersburg court system said that arrangement did not apply on Russian
territory.[1]The St Petersburg court system wrote on its Telegram channel
that she was fined after being found guilty of drug possession.[1]
A St Petersburg district court, the Moscow District Court, convicted Lorber
under Part 1 of Article 228 of the Russian Criminal Code for illegal possession
of drugs.[3]She had been held in a pre-trial detention centre since late
July.[3]Lorber admitted her guilt to the court.[3]Russian authorities said
the US patent she carried for marijuana use under a medical programme had no
effect in Russia.[3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Arrested
1
Charged
1
Cannabis
19.05 g
Prison
time served (about two months in pre-trial detention)
Fine
RUB 15,000
Agency type
Court
Cannabis
Herbal cannabis (19.05 g)
Activity
Possession
Setting
Airport
Case stage
Convicted
Sentence
Fine
Sources
NBC Newsnbcnews.comNew York college student arrested, jailed in Russia for medical marijuana is freed
RFE/RLrferl.orgRussian Court Fines American Teenager For Medical Marijuana Possession
Медиазона (Zona Media)zona.mediaRUТуристку из США, задержанную в петербургском аэропорту с медицинской марихуаной, оштрафовали на 15 тысяч рублей
Open questions the AI reported
The sources do not give the date the offence was detected; NBC News says the court statement of 2 September did not say when the alleged act occurred, so the date here is the ruling, 16 September 2019.
Sources give slightly different release dates: NBC News and Russian outlets report the ruling on Monday 16 September 2019, while RFE/RL says the court system announced the fine on 17 September; both are describing the same one-day conviction.
NBC News supplied dollar equivalents that differ slightly ($235 in its text and $230 in its standfirst); only the 15,000-rouble fine is recorded.
It was not established whether Lorber left Russia after the 10-day period before the sentence formally took effect, or whether either side appealed.
A Blagoveshchensk city court sentenced a local man to four and a half years in a strict-regime penal colony for illegally acquiring and storing more than 23 kilograms of marijuana and cultivating 162 cannabis plants. He gathered the plant near Markovo in August 2025, hid it in an abandoned house in Belogorye, and tended sprouts in his own garden from May to July 2026.
The Bakhchisaray district court in Crimea convicted a resident of the village of Rechnoye under part 2 of article 228 and gave him three years of imprisonment, suspended, with a three-year probation period. Prosecutors said he picked leaves and flower heads from cannabis bushes he had planted at his home in July 2026 and kept 312 grams of the plant material in his outbuilding for his own use.
Convicted 1Sentenced 1Cannabis 312 gPrison 3 years suspended with 3-year probation
A court in Amur Oblast convicted a 20-year-old resident of Petropavlovka, in Ivanovsky District, of illegally buying a large consignment of cannabis in June and revoked his earlier suspended sentence. He was ordered to serve two and a half years in a general-regime penal colony after pleading guilty in full.
A court in Usman municipal okrug, Lipetsk Oblast, sentenced a local man to nine months in a strict-regime colony for illegally growing more than 30 cannabis bushes on the garden plot of his house. Prosecutors said he sowed the seeds for his own use, and the case was brought under part 1 of article 231 of Russia's Criminal Code.
