By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
After being arrested in May, Jarred Shaw is facing charges that can lead to life imprisonment or the death penalty in Indonesia, according to local media outlets.
The 35-year-old forward/center is currently being held in pretrial custody in Jakarta for importing 132 pieces of cannabis candies from Thailand, valued at around 400 US dollars, to treat his Crohn’s disease. The strict drug laws in the country located in Southeast Asia prompted the aforementioned possible extreme consequences.
“I use cannabis as medicine,” he mentioned in a recent phone interview with The Guardian from prison, “I have an inflammatory condition called Crohn’s disease that’s incurable. There’s no medicine apart from cannabis that stops my stomach from aching.”
“I don’t use it to have fun and go party,” he added, “With my stomach condition, sometimes it’s hard for me to keep food down or go to the toilet. It just soothes the pain a little bit.”
An Indonesian Basketball League champion in 2023 as a Prawira Bandung star, Shaw received a lifetime ban from the IBL upon the raid on his apartment and his subsequent arrest.
He played in the second-tier division of Turkiye with Ankara DSI in the 2014-15 season and in the G League with the Santa Cruz Warriors in the 2015-16 installment of the development league based in North America. Back in college, between 2009 and 2014, the native of Dallas powered up Oklahoma State and Utah State.
From stints in Argentina, Tunisia, Thailand, Japan, Uruguay, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, he had focused his career in Indonesia over the last three years and was most recently signed to the Tangerang Hawks.