No. Gabapentin is not a controlled substance in Texas, and it is not one under federal law either. That answer comes from the source rather than from other websites: the words “gabapentin” and “pregabalin” do not appear anywhere in Chapter 481 of the Texas Health and Safety Code, the Texas Controlled Substances Act, and gabapentin is not in the schedules the Texas Department of State Health Services publishes.
Seven states did schedule it. Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, North Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia treat gabapentin as a Schedule V controlled substance. Texas is not one of them.
That does not mean you can carry it without a prescription
This is where people get hurt. Gabapentin is a prescription drug, and a prescription drug that sits outside the Texas schedules and penalty groups has a category of its own. It is a dangerous drug under Chapter 483. Section 483.001(2) defines the term as a drug that is unsafe for self-medication, carries an “Rx only” legend, and is not included in Schedules I through V or Penalty Groups 1 through 4.
Possessing one without a valid prescription is an offense under Section 483.041, and subsection (d) makes it a Class A misdemeanor. Up to a year in the county jail and a fine up to $4,000. So the full answer is that gabapentin is not a controlled substance in Texas, and carrying somebody else’s gabapentin can still get you arrested.
Officers get this wrong in both directions. Loose pills get charged as a controlled substance when they are a dangerous drug, and people get told they are fine when they are not. Which statute the State charges under changes the punishment range, and that is worth checking before anyone pleads to anything.
What about Lyrica?
Lyrica is pregabalin, and it is a real Schedule V controlled substance under federal law. It is also not named anywhere in the Texas Controlled Substances Act. If you are facing a Texas charge involving pregabalin, the first question is the same one as above: which statute did the State actually charge, and does the substance belong there.
Schedules and penalty groups are not the same thing
Most sites blur these together. Texas keeps two separate lists and they do different jobs.
The schedules, I through V, come out of the federal framework and get republished each year by the Department of State Health Services. They sort drugs by accepted medical use and potential for abuse, and they are mostly regulatory: who may manufacture, prescribe and dispense.
The penalty groups are what decide your exposure in a criminal case. There are seven, and the degree of the offense and the punishment range come from which group the substance sits in and how much of it the State says you had.
| Penalty group | What is in it |
| Penalty Group 1 (§ 481.102) | Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, oxycodone, hydrocodone above the limited-quantity thresholds |
| Penalty Group 1-A (§ 481.1021) | LSD and its analogues |
| Penalty Group 1-B (§ 481.1022) | Fentanyl and related opiates, split out into its own group by the Legislature in 2023 |
| Penalty Group 2 (§ 481.103) | MDMA, PCP, psilocybin, amphetamine variants |
| Penalty Group 2-A (§ 481.1031) | Synthetic cannabinoids, the compounds sold as K2 or spice |
| Penalty Group 3 (§ 481.104) | Benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Valium, methylphenidate, anabolic steroids |
| Penalty Group 4 (§ 481.105) | Limited-quantity preparations, the familiar example being codeine cough syrup |
Weight is the other half of the equation, and it is not the weight of the drug by itself. Texas counts adulterants and dilutants in the total, which is how a small amount of a substance pressed into a larger carrier puts somebody in a range they never saw coming. Whether the charge is a misdemeanor or a felony charge often turns on that number.
Charged with possession in Houston?
The substance, the weight and the search are three separate fights, and the lab work behind the first two is where a lot of these cases come apart. Jay Cohen is an ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist and a certified Drug Recognition Expert, which means the chromatography in your case gets read by someone trained to read it rather than taken at face value.
Call Blass Law at (713) 664-4000 for a confidential case evaluation, or start with our Houston drug possession lawyer page. Do not wait until the lab report lands.
A Houston DWI and criminal defense attorney since 2009 who has never worked for the prosecution. Jay is an ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, a certified practitioner and instructor of Standardized Field Sobriety Testing, a certified Drug Recognition Expert, and trained in forensic chromatography. He is a member of the National College for DUI Defense, a founding member of the DUI Defense Lawyers Association, and an appointee to the Texas Indigent Defense Commission by Gov. Abbott in 2024.
Last reviewed September 2026 · This article is legal information, not legal advice. Read Jay’s full bio →