The dispute in Green Room LLC v. Wyoming arose after Wyoming’s 2024 legislative session produced Senate Enrolled Act 24 (SEA 24) — a sweeping rewrite of the state’s hemp law that pushed Wyoming’s regulatory stance far beyond the federal definition adopted in the 2018 Farm Bill. The statute narrowed the definition of “hemp” to exclude any “synthetic substance,” expanded “THC” to capture delta-8 and other psychoactive isomers, and criminalized the manufacture, possession, or sale of hemp products containing more than 0.3% total THC by weight — whether delta-9, delta-8, or synthetic derivatives. The law also amended Wyoming’s Controlled Substances Act, adding both natural and synthetic delta-8 THC to Schedule I and aligning exemptions only with the new, restrictive definition of hemp.
These amendments effectively outlawed delta-8 THC products and many hemp-derived cannabinoid formulations that had become commercially ubiquitous under the federal hemp regime. For years, the plaintiff businesses — a collective of growers, processors, wholesalers, and retailers such as Green Room LLC, JB Development d/b/a Polyxtracts, and Platte Hemp Company — had built their operations around products meeting the federal 0.3% delta-9 THC standard. They distributed and sold those products throughout Wyoming and across state lines, relying on the 2018 Farm Bill’s assurance that “no State shall prohibit the transportation of hemp or hemp products” produced under federally approved plans.
When SEA 24 took effect, the plaintiffs sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 2201, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Their complaint raised four constitutional theories:
- Federal preemption under the Supremacy Clause — arguing that Wyoming could not narrow the federally defined category of hemp or criminalize products the Farm Bill expressly legalized;
- Dormant Commerce Clause — asserting that the state law impermissibly burdened interstate transportation of hemp products;
- Due process vagueness — claiming that undefined statutory terms such as “synthetic substance” and “psychoactive” failed to give fair notice; and
- Regulatory taking — a claim first developed in briefing for injunctive relief, asserting that SEA 24 destroyed investment-backed expectations in reliance on both federal and prior Wyoming law.
The defendants — the State of Wyoming, Governor Mark Gordon, Attorney General Bridget Hill, and Department of Agriculture Director Doug Miyamoto — moved to dismiss under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). They argued that sovereign immunity barred most claims, that no private right existed under the 2018 Farm Bill, and that the plaintiffs had not alleged any concrete burden on interstate commerce or deprivation of property.
The district court denied the request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood of success or irreparable harm. Shortly thereafter, it dismissed the case entirely, concluding that only Attorney General Hill and Director Miyamoto could be proper defendants under Ex parte Young and that even those claims failed on the merits.
On appeal, the Tenth Circuit consolidated the plaintiffs’ merits appeal with their challenge to the injunction denial. Judge Harris Hartz, writing for a unanimous panel, methodically walked through each constitutional theory — preemption, Dormant Commerce Clause, regulatory taking, and vagueness — affirming the district court on all grounds and dismissing the interlocutory injunction appeal as moot.
Preemption: No Private Right and No Federal Shield for Hemp Businesses
The plaintiffs led with a preemption claim, arguing that Wyoming’s SEA 24 conflicts with the 2018 Farm Bill and therefore violates the Supremacy Clause. They framed the statute’s new restrictions — especially its inclusion of synthetic cannabinoids and delta-8 THC within the definition of THC — as impermissibly narrower than the federal standard, which defines hemp as any part of the Cannabis sativa L. plant containing not more than 0.3% delta-9 THC on a dry-weight basis.
The Tenth Circuit rejected that framing outright. Writing for the panel, Judge Hartz explained that the plaintiffs failed to identify any federal right that would support a preemption claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Farm Bill regulates producers; it does not grant them enforceable rights against state regulation. Citing Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, the opinion reminded litigants that § 1983 provides a remedy only for violations of rights “unambiguously conferred” by Congress — not for disagreements with federal policy.
Plaintiffs also invoked the Supremacy Clause itself, but the panel noted that the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the Supremacy Clause creates no cause of action. As the court put it, echoing Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center: the Clause “is not the source of any federal rights, and certainly does not create a cause of action.” Without a statutory right to enforce, plaintiffs could not sustain a preemption claim under § 1983.
The opinion then turned to the argument that the Farm Bill’s transportation-through provision — which bars states from interfering with the interstate shipment of hemp — implicitly preempts state restrictions on hemp products. Plaintiffs leaned on that language to argue that Wyoming cannot criminalize hemp goods traveling through its borders. But the Tenth Circuit, following its own precedent in Serna v. Denver Police Department (2023), concluding that the text of § 1639o note “does not display a congressional intent to grant private rights to licensed hemp farmers”.
At this point, Judge Hartz inserted what will likely become the most cited passage of the opinion: footnote 4, an extended meditation on federal equity jurisdiction and preemption. The footnote acknowledged the Tenth Circuit’s earlier decision in Safe Streets Alliance v. Hickenlooper — which restricts preemption claims absent a statutory right — but questioned its soundness. The court noted that many other circuits interpret Armstrong to preserve an independent, judge-made equitable cause of action to enjoin state laws that conflict with federal law, even when Congress has not created a private right.
“The ability to sue to enjoin unconstitutional actions by state and federal officers is the creation of courts of equity … and we have never held or even suggested that, in its application to state officers, it rests upon an implied right of action contained in the Supremacy Clause.” — Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, 575 U.S. 320, 327 (2015), quoted in Green Room v. Wyoming, slip op. at 14 n.4.
Despite its lengthy discussion, the Tenth Circuit stopped short of adopting that broader equitable theory. The panel observed that, even if plaintiffs could proceed on a freestanding equitable claim, relief would remain premature. No plaintiff had shown an actual enforcement threat, nor any instance of transporting hemp across Wyoming borders. The court emphasized traditional restraint — particularly where state courts have not yet interpreted their own statute — and cited Arizona v. United States for the principle that federal courts should not assume a state law will be enforced in a manner that creates conflict.
In short, the Tenth Circuit reaffirmed the deference federal courts grant states under the 2018 Farm Bill. Congress allowed states to implement “more stringent” hemp regulations, and nothing in the Act prevents Wyoming from defining hemp more narrowly. The plaintiffs’ preemption theory collapsed under that statutory text — and under the absence of any private right of enforcement.
Dormant Commerce Clause: No Discrimination or Excessive Burden
The plaintiffs’ Dormant Commerce Clause theory aimed to turn Wyoming’s hemp restrictions into a constitutional test case. They argued that by criminalizing possession and sale of products federally recognized as “hemp” — particularly hemp-derived delta-8 THC — Wyoming impermissibly burdened the interstate flow of hemp goods. Their logic tracked other hemp industry cases filed nationwide: if a product meets the Farm Bill’s definition of hemp, no state can block its transport, sale, or possession within that state’s borders.
The Tenth Circuit disagreed. Judge Hartz began by restating the foundational principle: the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to regulate trade among the states, and its negative or “dormant” aspect limits state interference with that commerce. But not every state regulation touching interstate trade triggers constitutional scrutiny. The question, as the court put it, is whether Wyoming’s law discriminates against out-of-state products or imposes burdens on interstate commerce that clearly outweigh local benefits under Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U.S. 137 (1970).
Wyoming’s SEA 24 failed neither test. The law drew no distinction between in-state and out-of-state hemp; it prohibited both equally if the products contained more than 0.3% total THC or any synthetic cannabinoids. In other words, Wyoming did not erect a trade barrier favoring local producers — it shut the entire market for certain hemp derivatives. That evenhanded prohibition, while harsh, does not amount to facial discrimination under the Dormant Commerce Clause.
That left the plaintiffs with Pike balancing — a notoriously difficult path after the Supreme Court’s fractured 2023 decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U.S. 356 (2023). In Ross, Justice Gorsuch questioned the coherence of comparing “incommensurable values” such as moral and health interests against economic burdens, while a majority of Justices agreed that Pike balancing survives but applies narrowly.
Judge Hartz adopted that cautious approach. Plaintiffs bore the burden to show that the burden on commerce “clearly exceeds” Wyoming’s asserted local benefits. Yet, as the opinion bluntly noted, they never even attempted a Pike showing. They offered no quantification of economic harm, no evidence of disrupted supply chains, and no demonstration that hemp goods actually crossed Wyoming’s borders. The record lacked any allegation that the plaintiffs transported or sold hemp interstate through Wyoming — a factual gap that doomed their claim.
Even if they had, the Tenth Circuit indicated the scales would not have tipped in their favor. The court recognized public health and consumer safety as classic exercises of state police power — “matters traditionally of local concern” that receive special deference under Kassel v. Consolidated Freightways Corp., 450 U.S. 662 (1981). As long as Wyoming’s safety rationale was not “illusory,” the court would not second-guess its legislative judgment. Here, the inclusion of delta-8 THC on the state’s controlled substances list aligned with FDA warnings about health risks and fell squarely within Wyoming’s authority to police intoxicating compounds.
The opinion also cited the Fourth Circuit’s 2025 decision in Northern Virginia Hemp & Agriculture, LLC v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 125 F.4th 496, which upheld a similar ban on hemp edibles containing synthetic cannabinoids. Both courts emphasized that the 2018 Farm Bill did not federalize hemp commerce; it expressly allows states to adopt “more stringent” rules.
In its closing paragraph on this issue, the Tenth Circuit repeated a caution from Arizona v. United States: federal courts should not assume a conflict before state courts have construed the statute. Because Wyoming courts may interpret SEA 24 as excluding purely interstate shipments passing through the state — as the text arguably allows — the Tenth Circuit declined to invalidate the statute on speculation.
The message could not be clearer. The Dormant Commerce Clause provides no refuge for hemp businesses challenging state-level prohibitions on delta-8 and other cannabinoids. So long as a state treats all products equally and grounds its law in legitimate safety concerns, the federal courts will not act as super-legislatures to weigh the virtues of hemp commerce against local health policy.
For industry players shipping hemp beverages and cannabinoid products across multiple states, that means every border crossing still matters. States retain wide discretion to redefine “hemp” within their borders, and courts remain unwilling to second-guess those definitions absent facial discrimination or demonstrable interstate barriers. The attempts to use the Dormant Commerce Clause power to see something more in the 2018 Farm Bill than an allowance for hemp to pass through states lack intellectual merit and statutory honesty.
Regulatory Takings: No Compensation for Changed Hemp Laws
The plaintiffs also argued that Wyoming’s redefinition of hemp under SEA 24 amounted to an unconstitutional regulatory taking of their business interests. They claimed that after investing heavily in facilities, packaging, and inventory that met both federal and prior Wyoming standards, the legislature “moved the goalposts” by criminalizing products previously lawful to produce and sell.
Judge Hartz dismissed that argument with historical context and doctrinal clarity. The Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause prevents government from seizing private property without just compensation — but regulation rarely qualifies as a “taking” unless it physically appropriates property or eliminates all economically beneficial use. The plaintiffs alleged neither. Instead, they objected to the loss of commercial value in their hemp products after the law changed.
The Tenth Circuit emphasized that business expectations in regulated industries carry inherent risk. Borrowing from Mugler v. Kansas (1887) and James Everard’s Breweries v. Day (1924), the court traced a long line of cases rejecting takings claims when governments outlawed alcohol production or distribution. Those precedents, Judge Hartz wrote, illustrate that when a product’s only value depends on a legal privilege — such as the right to sell intoxicating or psychoactive substances — the state’s withdrawal of that privilege does not create a compensable taking.
In short, hemp entrepreneurs cannot claim a perpetual property right in the federal definition of hemp. Like brewers, distillers, or cannabis operators, they operate under the shadow of evolving regulation. The court noted that investors in “heavily regulated and contentious” industries understand the pendulum of politics will swing — sometimes sharply. Wyoming’s decision to tighten its hemp rules may devastate certain businesses, but it does not trigger the Constitution’s compensation clause.
Vagueness: “Psychoactive” Term Provides Adequate Notice
The plaintiffs’ vagueness challenge in Green Room v. Wyoming may prove the most consequential — not for what they argued, but for what they didn’t. SEA 24 redefined “hemp” to exclude any product containing a “synthetic substance” and added a definition of “synthetic substance” as “any synthetic THC, synthetic cannabinoid, or any other drug or psychoactive substance.” That formulation created two potential flashpoints: first, the breadth of the term synthetic; second, the ambiguity in the word psychoactive. The plaintiffs chose to attack only the latter.
That narrow focus left a significant argument on the table. Many hemp producers — and several state attorneys general — have wrestled with the question of whether chemical conversion from one natural cannabinoid to another transforms an otherwise lawful hemp extract into a “synthetic” substance. The Farm Bill expressly defines hemp to include “all derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids, salts, and salts of isomers.” Congress did not carve out products altered by ordinary extraction, refinement, or isomerization. Yet state agencies increasingly invoke the term “synthetic” to criminalize delta-8 and other minor cannabinoids even when they originate from hemp-derived CBD.
The plaintiffs in Green Room could have built a stronger record on that issue — stating in their pleading, for example, how the industry uses standard extraction and conversion processes to isolate delta-8 from natural hemp inputs. They could have tied that chemistry directly to the statutory definition Congress adopted in 7 U.S.C. § 1639o(1). Doing so would have forced the court to confront a fundamental ambiguity: whether “synthetic” in state law covers molecular rearrangement of plant-derived compounds or only entirely artificial substances manufactured from non-cannabis precursors.
Instead, the plaintiffs focused on the second half of the definition — the term psychoactive. They argued that the phrase “any other drug or psychoactive substance” left producers uncertain whether lawful non-intoxicating cannabinoids like CBD fell within the ban. They warned that, depending on interpretation, Wyoming’s law could criminalize much of the state’s hemp retail market.
The Tenth Circuit found that concern overstated. Citing Wyoming Gun Owners v. Gray, 83 F.4th 1224 (10th Cir. 2023), the court reiterated that due process demands fair notice, not perfect precision. Every statute contains gray edges; that doesn’t make it unconstitutionally vague. The court relied on ordinary dictionary meaning and industry usage, concluding that psychoactive plainly refers to substances influencing the mind or mental processes — not compounds like CBD that lack intoxicating effect. The panel also noted that Wyoming regulators had expressly confirmed that CBD remains lawful under SEA 24.
The opinion reinforced a broader theme: courts defer to legislative line-drawing in drug and alcohol regulation, particularly where regulated parties can consult agency guidance or established definitions. While the plaintiffs described hypothetical enforcement confusion, they offered no evidence of actual prosecutorial uncertainty or conflicting lab results.
Still, this portion of the case underscores a persistent problem for the hemp industry — one the Tenth Circuit avoided by limiting its review to the psychoactive term. The opinion leaves unresolved whether states may label any compound “synthetic” merely because it results from chemical conversion rather than direct extraction. That issue continues to divide agencies and courts nationwide.
From a regulatory perspective, the decision illustrates how careful framing of a vagueness challenge matters. A more comprehensive record on the scientific and statutory meaning of “synthetic” — coupled with expert testimony on hemp extraction chemistry — might have exposed how SEA 24 conflicts with Congress’s definition of hemp under the Farm Bill. By narrowing their challenge to “psychoactive,” the plaintiffs surrendered the stronger ground and allowed the court to uphold Wyoming’s statute under deferential vagueness review.
The takeaway for hemp and beverage producers: state laws using undefined terms like synthetic or psychoactive demand close scrutiny and evidence-based rebuttal. Without it, courts will default to ordinary meaning and uphold restrictions that erase federally legal products from state markets.
Takeaways and Broader Context
The Tenth Circuit’s decision in Green Room v. Wyoming fits squarely within the emerging judicial consensus granting states broad discretion to regulate hemp and cannabinoid products under the 2018 Farm Bill’s “more stringent” clause. Every constitutional argument the plaintiffs raised — preemption, Dormant Commerce Clause, regulatory taking, and vagueness — ran headlong into that principle.
From an industry perspective, the ruling confirms that states retain significant latitude to define “hemp” within their own borders, even when those definitions eliminate entire product categories. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp federally, but it did not strip states of police power over intoxicating or synthetic derivatives. Courts consistently defer to those local determinations, especially when couched in public-health rationales and applied evenhandedly to in- and out-of-state commerce.
For multi-state beverage and cannabinoid producers, Green Room offers a caution: federal compliance alone does not guarantee state legality. Any product relying on chemical conversion or cannabinoid isomerization now faces heightened scrutiny in restrictive states such as Wyoming, Virginia, and Tennessee. Manufacturers must track evolving statutory language — particularly around “synthetic,” “psychoactive,” and “total THC” definitions — and plan formulations, labeling, and distribution accordingly.
Finally, the decision illustrates how factual development and expert grounding shape constitutional outcomes in emerging-product litigation. A fuller scientific record on hemp chemistry and manufacturing processes could have reframed this case if incorporated into the pleading on the off-chance that the case was dismissed and the appeal needed to follow. Without it, the court deferred to state interpretation and left the key definitional battles for another day.
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