From Madelyn Beck

A federal judge in Wyoming on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit claiming the state’s ban on the sale of Delta-8 and similar substances was unconstitutional.

The substances are similar to marijuana and are found in tiny amounts in the cannabis plant, but are reported to have milder effects and in some cases can be synthesized using dangerous chemicals.

Judge Kelly Rankin granted the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit for many of the same reasons he denied the plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order or injunctive relief, he said.

“Much of the analysis remains the same, and the Court will incorporate the reasoning and cited authority from that order herein,” he wrote. “Accordingly, the Court concludes that defendants’ motion should be granted and plaintiffs’ claims dismissed with prejudice.”

The plaintiffs – a group of Delta-8 business owners, manufacturers, users and a farm – failed to prove any of their allegations of unconstitutionality, Rankin continued. These included claims that the law violates the Interstate Commerce Clause, amounts to an unconstitutional taking and is invalid because of its vagueness.

“The fact that the plaintiffs are dissatisfied with the substances prohibited by the ban does not make the law vague,” he explained.

He also found that the federal lawsuit, which names the governor and the state as defendants, was improper, citing Eleventh Amendment protections. Only Wyoming Attorney General and Wyoming Department of Agriculture Director Doug Miyamoto were appropriate defendants.

Rankin’s ruling does not give the plaintiffs an opportunity to appeal to the U.S. District Court for Wyoming. The group has since filed an appeal with the 10th Circuit.

Or rather, the plaintiffs have amended an appeal they filed Thursday morning – before Rankin’s ruling – in which they had already asked the appeals court to reconsider their request for a preliminary injunction.

The ban went into effect in July and cost some plaintiffs’ businesses thousands of dollars a day, they previously told the court. Wyoming’s Delta-8 industry grew significantly in the years before the ban went into effect, blossoming from a perceived loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that legalized hemp at the federal level. The same language in that federal law was later adopted in Wyoming.

This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on the people, places and politics of Wyoming.