2020 Georgia Code
Title 16 - Crimes and Offenses
Chapter 13 - Controlled Substances
Article 1 - General Provisions
§ 16-13-3. Penalty for Abandonment of Dangerous Drugs, Poisons, or Controlled Substances

Any person who shall abandon, in a public place, any dangerous drug, poison, or controlled substance as defined by Article 2 or Article 3 of this chapter shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

(Code 1933, § 79A-9918, enacted by Ga. L. 1977, p. 625, § 9.)

- Detection of drugs by Department of Transportation enforcement officers, § 32-6-29.

Abandonment is not a lesser included offense of possession and, even if there was evidence that defendant prosecuted for possession of cocaine might have committed the separate act of abandonment, defendant was not entitled to a charge on that crime. Billingsley v. State, 220 Ga. App. 69, 467 S.E.2d 377 (1996).

- Evidence supported defendant's conviction for abandonment of a controlled substance in a public place, in violation of O.C.G.A. § 16-13-3, because defendant was approached by undercover officers, and when defendant realized that they were officers, defendant threw the crack cocaine that defendant was holding at a trash barrel on the abandoned residential lot where defendant was standing; the area was within the definition of "public place" under O.C.G.A. § 16-1-3(15) as the area was viewed by persons other than the members of defendant's family or household. Woods v. State, 275 Ga. App. 471, 620 S.E.2d 660 (2005).

Evidence was sufficient to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of manufacturing methamphetamine, O.C.G.A. § 16-13-30(b), conspiring to possess methamphetamine, O.C.G.A. § 16-13-3, and possessing methamphetamine, § 16-13-30(a) because the state was not required to show that the defendant was in sole or actual possession of the methamphetamine but could establish the element of possession by showing that the defendant was in joint constructive possession of the contraband; the evidence allowed for a finding that the defendant lived at the residence where the methamphetamine was found, that methamphetamine was found in the master bedroom atop the same dresser as a driver's license bearing the defendant's name and the residential address, that stored in a lockbox underneath the bed in that room were recipes for producing methamphetamine or a similar substance, along with digital scales associated with the drug trade, and that the defendant's residential premises was being used as a clandestine methamphetamine lab. Edwards v. State, 306 Ga. App. 713, 703 S.E.2d 130 (2010).

Cited in Recoba v. State, 179 Ga. App. 31, 345 S.E.2d 81 (1986); Mincey v. Head, 206 F.3d 1106 (11th Cir. 2000); Duggan v. Duggan-Schlitz, 246 Ga. App. 127, 539 S.E.2d 840 (2000); Luckie v. Berry, 305 Ga. 684, 827 S.E.2d 644 (2019).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

ALR.

- Federal prosecutions based on manufacture, importation, transportation, possession, sale, or use of LSD, 22 A.L.R.3d 1325.

Propriety of lesser-included-offense charge in state prosecution of narcotics defendant - Marijuana cases, 1 A.L.R.6th 549.

Propriety of lesser-included-offense charge in state prosecution of narcotics defendant - Cocaine cases, 2 A.L.R.6th 551.