CASPER, Wyo. — A federal judge has denied a motion to halt Wyoming’s ban on delta-8 and other cannabinoid products. The legislation was passed in March and went into effect July 1.
About a dozen Wyoming companies selling the popular cannabis products filed a motion for a temporary injunction or restraining order against the law, saying that it unconstitutionally violated the letter and intent of federal law written in the 2018 Farm Bill.
Wyoming District Judge Kelly Rankin wrote in his order that although the federal law modified definitions of hemp to allow for cultivation, it did not grant explicit protections that would preclude state lawmakers from banning psychoactive concentrates in the interest of public health.
The federal law legalized all parts of the hemp — Cannabis sativa — plant for cultivation, so long as it didn’t contain more than 0.3% trans‑delta-9‑tetrahydrocannabinol, the compound traditionally targeted in legislation as primarily responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive effects.
Vendors capitalized on this by extracting and concentrating other cannabinoids in the hemp plant that have psychoactive effects, of which there are over a hundred, according to the FDA. The effects are reportedly comparable to traditional marijuana.
That outcome was certainly not the intent of Wyoming lawmakers when they signed the Hemp Production Bill in 2019, Senator and Judiciary Committee Co-Chair Bill Landen told Oil City News last month.
That bill echoed the federal language targeting delta-9, leaving a loophole for extracting the other compounds. Wyoming’s delta-8 ban expanded language and definitions to prohibit hemp containing any “synthetic substance” or “psychoactive substance” over the 0.3% threshold.
The committee was also concerned over anecdotes about teenagers sickened and hospitalized after ingesting the legal products, and pointed to similar warnings by the FDA.
Rankin and the state’s attorneys clarified that the non-psychoactive CBD compound is still legal under the new law.
