Georgia Army National Guard helicopters flew over every county in the state this summer carrying civilian police officers who scanned private property for illegal marijuana grows, a mission the Guard calls “probable cause generation” that is raising questions about the boundaries between military support and domestic policing.
The flights, conducted under the Guard’s Title 32 federal counterdrug authority, used UH-72 Lakota or UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters with three-person military aircrews. A civilian law enforcement officer rode aboard each flight, searching for marijuana from the air across all 159 Georgia counties. When a grow was spotted, the observation was used to establish probable cause for a search warrant, Guard officials told Task & Purpose.
The approach marks a departure from past practice. In 2013, Georgia Guard crews flew similar missions but only after receiving suspected locations from local sheriff’s departments. This year, officials said they deliberately searched broad areas rather than limiting flights to previously identified properties. The Guard said the new method saves police fuel, manpower and time by allowing ground teams to deploy only after a grow is positively identified from the air.
In one operation this summer, a civilian officer aboard a UH-72 spotted marijuana behind a private residence in Dalton. That observation led to a search warrant and the seizure of 17 plants and two pounds of processed marijuana, valued at more than $40,000. Across the entire summer, Guard crews helped state and local agencies seize 343 marijuana plants, 326 of them from a single operation in Polk County.
Seizure numbers are sharply lower than a decade ago. In 2012, the same task force seized more than 71,000 plants across Georgia, including large grows on public land in the Chattahoochee National Forest. The Guard described this year’s wider search area as a success nonetheless. “The success of this ERAD season highlights that the Georgia National Guard is not an afterthought or secondary request, but an indispensable partner,” Capt. Jimmy Williams, deputy director of the Georgia National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, said in a release.
Beyond the helicopter flights, Georgia Guard personnel also provide criminal case analysis to law enforcement, including information on drug trafficking organizations and illicit financial networks. The operations are part of the larger National Guard Counterdrug Program, which operates in every state and several U.S. territories. Congress appropriated approximately $1.33 billion for the program between fiscal years 2019 and 2024, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The Georgia missions highlight a long-running tension over the Posse Comitatus Act and related statutes that generally prohibit the military from participating in civilian law enforcement. While the Guard operates under state authority or specific federal counterdrug statutes that permit certain support, the use of military aircraft and crews to generate probable cause for search warrants on private property pushes against traditional limits, civil liberties advocates argue. The shift from targeted searches based on prior intelligence to broad, county-by-county aerial surveillance adds a new dimension to that debate.
Sources: DVIDS News · DVIDS News · Task & Purpose · DVIDS News