diff --git a/litellm/proxy/proxy_server.py b/litellm/proxy/proxy_server.py
index 08fa129e1..8510b3501 100644
--- a/litellm/proxy/proxy_server.py
+++ b/litellm/proxy/proxy_server.py
@@ -9,9 +9,6 @@ import warnings
 import importlib
 import warnings
 import backoff
-from argon2 import PasswordHasher
-
-ph = PasswordHasher()
 
 
 def showwarning(message, category, filename, lineno, file=None, line=None):
@@ -38,6 +35,7 @@ try:
     import orjson
     import logging
     from apscheduler.schedulers.asyncio import AsyncIOScheduler
+    from argon2 import PasswordHasher
 except ImportError as e:
     raise ImportError(f"Missing dependency {e}. Run `pip install 'litellm[proxy]'`")
 
@@ -237,6 +235,7 @@ user_headers = None
 user_config_file_path = f"config_{int(time.time())}.yaml"
 local_logging = True  # writes logs to a local api_log.json file for debugging
 experimental = False
+ph = PasswordHasher()
 #### GLOBAL VARIABLES ####
 llm_router: Optional[litellm.Router] = None
 llm_model_list: Optional[list] = None
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 53373add0..fe5ffba39 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -50,7 +50,6 @@ proxy = [
     "fastapi-sso",
     "PyJWT",
     "python-multipart",
-    "argon2-cffi"
 ]
 
 extra_proxy = [