Wyoming Keeps Marijuana in Schedule I Despite Federal Rescheduling

Wyoming will keep every form of marijuana — including cannabis licensed under other states’ medical programs — classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, after the state’s top legal officer declined to follow the Trump administration’s move to loosen federal restrictions.

Attorney General Keith Kautz, who doubles as Wyoming’s Commissioner of Drugs and Substances Control, issued a final decision on July 7, 2026 rejecting the automatic reclassification that state law would otherwise have set in motion. Wyoming’s drug schedules generally track the federal ones: when a substance is rescheduled under federal law, the commissioner is directed to match the change within 30 days. But the same statute lets him formally object and hold a public hearing first, and that is the lever Kautz pulled.

He filed his objection on May 28, 2026, a month after the federal change took effect, then convened a hearing at the State Capitol on June 18, 2026. Public interest was slight. The office logged eight written comments, split evenly for and against keeping marijuana in Schedule I, plus one person who testified in favor of the strictest classification. Finding no groundswell for change, the commissioner made the block permanent.

Why Wyoming stands apart

The federal rule that took effect on April 28, 2026 did not legalize marijuana. It moved two narrow categories — FDA-approved drug products containing marijuana and cannabis handled under a state medical marijuana license — from Schedule I to the far less restrictive Schedule III, leaving everything else in Schedule I. For states with licensed medical markets, that shift lifted a punishing federal tax penalty and opened a path to federal registration.

Wyoming has none of that to work with. It is one of a shrinking group of states with no medical or adult-use cannabis program at all. Because its legislature has never authorized medical marijuana, approved a licensing scheme, or agreed to honor licenses issued elsewhere, Kautz concluded there was no state-licensed category for the federal change to reach. Placing state-licensed medical marijuana into Schedule III, he found, would be “inconsistent with the police powers exercised to date by the Wyoming Legislature.” Whether to pull any marijuana out of Schedule I, he added, is a call for lawmakers — not one to be made through administrative rulemaking.

The commissioner carved out the handful of marijuana-derived medicines the FDA has already cleared, noting they are separately classified under state law and untouched by his decision. Dronabinol sits in Schedule III, the nabilone-based drug Cesamet in Schedule II, and the CBD epilepsy treatment Epidiolex has not been a controlled substance in Wyoming since 2020.

A pattern among prohibition states

Wyoming is not the only holdout wrestling with a federal change it never sought. Because the reclassification carries an automatic trigger in states whose schedules follow federal law, officials in prohibition states have had to decide whether to let medical marijuana drop into a lower tier by default. Alabama’s public-health board voted to object in May 2026 to buy time on implementation. Tennessee’s governor signed legislation blocking an automatic review that could have opened the door to medical marijuana. And a South Carolina senator argued the trigger had already made medical cannabis legal in his state.

Wyoming’s decision echoes, from the opposite side, Washington State’s finding that the federal rule does not reach its cannabis businesses — there because Washington licenses only adult-use operators, not medical ones. In each case, the missing piece is a qualifying state medical license, and without it the federal benefits never arrive.

What comes next

For now, Kautz’s ruling settles the matter: it stands unless the legislature rewrites the statute. That keeps Wyoming outside the federal framework even as a broader rescheduling hearing plays out in Washington, D.C. over whether to move all marijuana, recreational products included, to Schedule III.

A near-term reversal looks unlikely. Wyoming lawmakers have repeatedly declined to advance cannabis measures — a 2021 adult-use bill stalled after clearing a House committee, and a 2022 decriminalization proposal to replace the state’s misdemeanor charge with a $100 fine never reached a vote. Campaigns to put medical cannabis and decriminalization on the 2024 ballot failed to qualify, even after a 2020 poll found a majority of residents supported letting adults possess marijuana. Until the legislature moves, the federal government’s softer stance stops at the state line.