ACT police say the huge value of 28kg of seized methamphetamine justified stationing two specialist response group officers with assault rifles at a press conference on Friday.
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Police say the drugs, which were found hidden in a car in Curtin on Thursday, were the biggest seizure in the ACT.
The drugs, which were laid out on a table in the middle of media conference room inside police HQ in Belconnen, had a suspected street value of $26 million and would account for 280,000 standard 0.1 gram deals.
But despite being inside a police station with only journalists in the room, a police spokesman said the presence of heavily armed officers was necessary given "the significant amount of drugs".
"We need to be very mindful of the security of this, which is paramount," he said.
Some Facebook users questioned whether there was a need for the assault rifles to be present at the press conference.
"Though I can understand the need to secure such a valuable cache - I can't help but wonder if the prominent display of high powered weaponry is just a theatrical device directed from the AFP's PR branch?" said one user on the Canberra Times page.
The SR-16 rifles carried by the two specialist response group officers are the same guns used by AFP officers tasked with patrolling Parliament House in September after intelligence services detected "chatter" about a potential attack.
The presence of automatic rifles was a surprise to many on social media while some saw no problem with officers displaying the guns.
