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This is Fresh Air.

I'm Terry Gross.

It's been less than one and a half year since my guest W.

N. B. A. Star Brittany Griner was released from a Russian penal colony where she was serving a nine-year sentence.

She'd already spent 293 days incarcerated in Russian prisons. Now she's preparing for her second season reunited with

her team the Phoenix Mercury. Like many W NBA players her salary was so low

that back in 2014 in the off season she started playing for a team in Russia

where the pay was considerably better than in the US. She continued playing in Russia during the off season until 2022.

Then when she arrived at the airport in Moscow,

she was unexpectedly stopped, questioned,

and asked to empty the contents of her luggage.

She discovered that there were two nearly empty cartridges of cannabis

that she'd neglected to remove before the trip.

She had a prescription for medical marijuana to ease the chronic pain of

basketball injuries, but in Russia there's no such thing as medical marijuana.

And she was accused of having a significant amount of cannabis, which was just not true.

Her imprisonment made national headlines and a movement formed to demand her release.

The Biden administration eventually was able to negotiate a prisoner swap.

In return for releasing Griner, America handed over Victor Boot, an infamous Russian arms dealer

...