The odor of marijuana provides law enforcement the ability to search without consent and without a warrant. However, in recent years the state legislature has enacted the Georgia Hemp Farming Act (GHFA), legalizing hemp products. It is without debate that the odor of illegal marijuana and legal hemp are the same. Because of this, courts of this state are presented with the challenge of whether the odor of marijuana and hemp alone still provide law enforcement with probable cause to search.

The appellate courts of Georgia have issued three opinions in cases related to the argument that the odor is insufficient to give an officer probable cause. In Gowen v. State (2021), the court upheld a search where law enforcement smelled the odor off marijuana because the GHFA did not allow for the commercial sale and raw hemp to consumers and Gowen presented no evidence that he possessed legal hemp that was designed to be smoked. The court ruled the search was proper by also considering the odor in the context that Gowen also had a warrant for his arrest for drug related offenses. In Coverstone (2024), law enforcement stopped the vehicle for stopping passed the balk line. Law enforcement detected the odor they believed to be marijuana and conducted a search locating pre-rolled CBD cigarettes and a controlled substance. The defense presented evidence that the CBD cigarettes were designed to be smoked and therefore the odor alone was not sufficient. Again, the court denied the motion to suppress. The court found that probable cause to search was not founded solely on the odor but in conjunction with an admission that marijuana was smoked within four hours of the traffic stop. The third case addressing the odor of marijuana as probable cause to search is Rosales-Urrutia (2026). For a third time the court declined to revisit whether the odor precedent focusing again on the fact that admissions were made regarding having “smoked in the car recently.”

While Georgia courts upheld warrantless searches in these cases, the courts have laid the groundwork that the odor of marijuana/ hemp alone without additional admissions may no longer provide sufficient probable cause to search.