Challenge Possession and Trafficking Charges with
Metro Atlanta Drug Defense Lawyers
If you or your child is facing a drug charge in the Atlanta area, it is normal to have concerns about what it could mean. This is especially true because Georgia treats most drug charges as felonies regardless of the amount of drugs. A Metro Atlanta drug defense lawyer can help you understand what the charge actually means and what options you have.
Most of the people we help are in their teens and twenties. Many of the calls we get come from a parent who wants to get ahead of the situation, and that is a smart instinct. What you want is usually simple: for you or your child to move past this without a felony shaping the rest of their life. That is what our firm is built around.
Our law firm has been defending people in their teens and twenties since 2007, and we’ve helped more than a thousand families bring clarity and a plan to a stressful situation. We help families across Metro Atlanta and North Georgia, starting with an understanding of your goals to show you the choices in front of you.
Georgia sorts controlled substances into five schedules under the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I and Schedule II carry the harshest treatment, and the schedule a substance falls into shapes the possible sentence.
Here is the part that surprises families. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-13-30, possession of a controlled substance is generally a felony no matter how small the amount. The main exception is marijuana, where possession of one ounce or less is a misdemeanor.
A drug conviction can reach well past the courtroom. Depending on the charge, it can affect college admissions and financial aid, jobs and professional licenses, immigration status for anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, and the right to own a firearm. Because most drug possession is a felony in Georgia, those effects can be long-lasting, which is a big part of why minimizing a person’s record, where possible, is worth the effort.
If you or your child is facing a drug charge, it is likely one of these that our team defends most often:
Prescription pill cases catch people off guard often. Holding a friend’s medication can support a felony charge in Georgia.
Typically, a felony drug case is prosecuted in Superior Court. For a young person 16 or under, the case usually starts in juvenile court instead. Either way, the case does not sit still waiting for a court date. The state is often still testing the substance and building its case against you, and the earliest decisions, about a search, a statement, or whether to talk to investigators, can shape everything that follows.
Getting a lawyer involved early, sometimes before formal charges are even filed, can influence whether charges are brought and what evidence can be used. The sooner the details are reviewed, the more paths tend to stay open.
You do not have to be holding something to be charged with possessing it. Georgia allows a theory called constructive possession, which applies when the state argues a person had the power and intent to control an item.
This comes up constantly with young people:
Constructive possession cases often turn on what the state can actually prove about who controlled the item. That is exactly the kind of issue worth examining closely.
Being charged is not the same as being convicted, and a drug case can end without a conviction in more than one way.
There are a number of common areas that our team typically looks at:
While there may be other issues we look at on a case-by-case basis, those are the most common ones. Knowing the answers to those questions, along with our client’s goals, can help drive whether the case should be fought in court or negotiated.
For those cases that it makes sense to negotiate, there may be a pretrial diversion program in the court where the case is pending that we can negotiate on behalf of our clients. Typically, a pre-trial diversion program involves our client completing certain things over a period of time and the prosecutor dismissing the case if our client completes all of those things. You can learn more about pre-trial diversion programs by watching this video or reading our blog article.
Outside of challenging the case and a diversion program, Georgia has a conditional discharge provision under O.C.G.A. § 16-13-2(a) for a person with no prior drug offense. The court can withhold a finding of guilt, place the person on probation, and dismiss the case once the terms are met.
Points to keep in mind:
Which option to pursue depends on the client’s goals, the charge, the person’s history, the court, and the judge. When a resolution lines up with your goals, our team works toward it.
A drug charge can trigger more than a court case. A student may also face a school or campus disciplinary process at the same time, and the two run on separate tracks with separate rules.
What a student says in a school hearing can matter in the court case. That is one reason we look at both together rather than one at a time. Our school tribunal page covers the school side.
Your defense starts with you: your goals, your situation, and what a good outcome looks like for your family. If we decide to work together, we take time to understand the young person and where they want to go, then build a plan around that and recommend how to move forward.
From there, the work is ours to carry: we look closely at how the substance was found, whether the stop or search was handled properly, and what the state can prove about drug possession. What we recommend depends on those answers, not on a standard script, and we keep you in the loop at each step.
1. Contact us to schedule a time to discuss your situation.
2. Get clarity on your options by meeting with us.
3. Pick which option you want.
4. Execute the plan together.
We believe every young person should have the chance to become their best self, and one drug charge should not quietly define what comes next, or how they see themselves while going through it. That belief is the reason we do this work.
When we take a case, we keep you informed, we prepare the young person for court, and we keep the plan built around your goals.
A consultation runs in both directions. You get a clearer picture of your options, and we learn enough about the situation to decide with you whether we are a good fit. We do not take every case that reaches out.
A word of caution as you compare firms. Your case deserves genuine focus, so if an attorney jumps on the phone the instant you call, it is worth asking why. Part of giving your case that focus is not dropping another client’s work to chase a new call, which is why we schedule our consultations.
Our legal team helps families throughout Metro Atlanta and North Georgia, including these counties:
Bartow County, Carroll County, Cherokee County, Clayton County, Cobb County, DeKalb County, Douglas County, Fayette County, Forsyth County, Fulton County, Gwinnett County, Hall County, Paulding County, and Pickens County.
Usually, yes. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-13-30, possessing a controlled substance is generally a felony no matter how small the amount. The main exception is marijuana, where one ounce or less is a misdemeanor.
It is when the state argues you had the power and intent to control a drug even though it was not on you, such as something found in a shared car or room. These cases turn on what the state can actually prove about who controlled the item.
It depends on age. A person 17 or older is charged as an adult, while a young person 16 or under usually starts in juvenile court.
Not necessarily. Whether jail is a realistic outcome depends on the charge, the person’s record, and how the case is resolved. Many drug cases involving young people with no prior record are resolved without incarceration, through negotiations, a diversion program, or conditional discharge. A lawyer can look at the specifics and explain what outcomes are realistic.
It is worth talking to one. Even a first offense in Georgia is usually a felony and can create a permanent criminal record. A lawyer can identify options available, like diversion programs or conditional discharge, that can keep the case from becoming a conviction and may make the record eligible to be restricted.
In Georgia, nothing truly comes off a record. The goal is to limit who can see it through restriction and sealing. Certain outcomes can open that door: a case dismissed through pretrial diversion, resolved by conditional discharge, or discharged under the First Offender Act can make the court and criminal-history records eligible to be restricted and sealed. Whether it applies depends on the charge and how the case ends.
A drug charge in Georgia can carry more weight than people expect, and it is still only a charge. The sooner our team learns the details, the sooner we can help you understand your options and build a plan around your goals.
Schedule your consultation today.
Not ready to talk yet? Download our free guide, “5 Things Not to Do After You’ve Been Charged with a Crime,” for the early missteps to avoid.
Ghanouni Teen & Young Adult Defense Firm 691 John Wesley Dobbs Ave NE unit 225, Atlanta, GA 30312
Ghanouni Teen & Young Adult Defense Firm 2765 S Main St Suite C-2, Kennesaw, GA 30144
Ghanouni Teen & Young Adult Defense Firm 3227 S. Cherokee Lane, Suite 1360, Woodstock, GA 30188