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Wyoming is essentially hitting the “decline” button on cannabis reform by exploiting a loophole in its own state laws. Back in April, the Trump Justice Department officially fast-tracked a move that bumped FDA-approved and state-licensed medical marijuana down to Schedule 3. Because Wyoming’s state drug laws usually mirror federal rules, this change would have automatically triggered a shift locally. However, State Attorney General Keith Kautz stepped in and filed a formal objection, ensuring Wyoming opts out of the federal medical upgrade. His logic? Since Wyoming hasn’t legalized medical weed yet, any policy changes should come from local lawmakers, not federal agencies.
This bureaucratic chess move comes at a pretty chaotic time for cannabis policy, and Wyoming isn’t the only state building a firewall against reform. Tennessee is running a remarkably similar playbook to protect its own status as a strict cannabis desert. The state recently executed a massive anti-cannabis crackdown, banning popular hemp-derived THCA products and rushing to pass local laws specifically designed to block federal rescheduling from automatically overriding its strict state-level prohibitions.
While the medical side of things was wrapped up in April, there are still massive, ongoing DEA hearings in Washington to figure out what to do with the rest of the market—specifically, reclassifying all other marijuana (like adult-use and recreational). Wyoming isn’t even involved in those broader D.C. hearings; states like Indiana and Nebraska are leading that charge. Instead, holdouts like Wyoming and Tennessee are focusing entirely on their own borders, shutting down any accidental federal loopholes to ensure their local prohibitionist laws stay firmly locked in place.
This is a summary.
Please read the original article: This State Just Opted Out of Federal Marijuana Rescheduling
Original article written by MJB Staff. Published on July 8, 2026 by MJB Daily.
