Dunwoody, GA Public Conduct: Public Marijuana Use (2026)

Dunwoody's marijuana offense, City Code § 24-10, is a possession law, not a use-specific statute, but because it applies to a person who 'possesses or have under his control within the city' up to an ounce of marijuana with no location qualifier, it reaches someone carrying or using marijuana on a public street or in a city park just as much as at home. Section 24-10(b) defines 'marijuana' expansively: all parts of the cannabis plant, its seeds and resin, and any compound or preparation made from them, while carving out mature stalks, fiber, sterilized seed, and oil or cake made from the plant.

The ordinance gives every person charged a statutory right, on request, to have the case moved out of Dunwoody Municipal Court and into the State Court of DeKalb County, where it is prosecuted and tried as a state-law misdemeanor rather than a city citation, per § 24-10(c). That transfer right matters because it changes both the court and the penalty structure a defendant faces. Absent a transfer, a conviction in municipal court is punished under § 24-11's general-penalty cross-reference to § 1-6, capping the fine or sentence at whatever maximum state law or the city Charter allows.

The ordinance traces to the article's original 2008 codification, adopted the year Dunwoody incorporated out of unincorporated DeKalb County, and it has not been repealed or amended since.