Snoop Dogg has been forbidden from returning to Norway. Following an arrest last month at Kjevik airport, Kristiansand, for possession of marijuana, the American rapper will be barred from entering the country until the summer of 2014.
At first it seemed as though Snoop was getting off with a slap on the wrist: arriving in Kristiansand for a gig at Hovefestivalen with eight grams of marijuana and an excess of cash, Snoop was fined 52,000kr (£5,500). Despite the sniffer-dog bust, the 40-year-old was allowed to go on and play the music festival, from which he tweeted updates about getting high: “Smoking crip n. cuzns,” he wrote. “Hahahahahhaha.”
But Norwegian officials have had the last laugh. According to the Associated Press, Snoop has been barred from returning to the country for the next 24 months. He will not be filing an appeal, his lawyer said. “[Snoop] can live with the decision.”
This was not, after all, Snoop Dogg’s first run-in with Norwegian border guards. He was held upon arrival in Oslo in October 2011, when agents apparently told him he had “2much money”. He had also been detained in Sweden four years before on suspicion of using illegal narcotics. Until 2010, Snoop was routinely refused his visa for proposed tours of the UK.
Recently, Snoop announced that he is turning his attention away from rap to a genre of music that is even more notorious for its love of cannabis. Recording under the name Snoop Lion, he will release his first reggae album later this year.