Marc Fogel isn’t a household name. Before the Butler native was detained in Russia for possession of medical marijuana that he used to treat his severe back injury, he likely never would have made national headlines.

But even though his name has reached national news, Fogel isn’t as popular as celebrity WNBA athlete Brittney Griner, and his freedom has noticeably not been included in the Joe Biden administration’s negotiations with Russia.

Currently included in the negotiations are Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan.

Last week, a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators from Pennsylvania sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging that Fogel, too, be included in the negotiations.

Among those signing the letter were our local legislators, U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly, R-16th, Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-15th, and Conor Lamb, D-17th, and U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.

The letter notes that Fogel was detained on a charge very similar to Griner, who was sentenced to 9 years in prison for cannabis possession. Fogel is serving a 14-year term.

Though in both instances the drug was obtained by legal means in the U.S., the drug is illegal in Russia.

There’s no doubt a lesson to be learned here: Read up on foreign laws before traveling abroad.

But an additional lesson right now seems to be that fame — rather than hard work and dedication — might buy freedom.

That doesn’t align too well with what’s branded as the “American Dream.”

Work hard and no matter who you are, you can attain success — unless you’re an American stuck in Russia? In that case, it seems fame and notoriety is more likely than hard work to equate freedom.

That’s not what we were taught, and it’s not what we want our children to grow up to believe.

Marc Fogel is just as much a citizen of the United States as Griner. Fogel grew up in Butler and lives in Oakmont, Allegheny County. He taught history courses at schools attended by children of U.S. diplomats in Colombia, Venezuela, Oman, Malaysia, and, for the last 10 years, Russia.

His freedom should be taken just seriously as a professional athlete’s.

We appreciate the bipartisan effort to get this to the Biden administration’s attention and we hope Butler County’s Fogel will be included in its negotiations.

— TL