Lankford’s War on Small Business: The Never-Ending Crusade Against Oklahoma’s Cannabis Industry

Senator James Lankford has never hidden his disdain for the cannabis industry. He’s been fighting it for years, like a self-righteous preacher in a town square, railing against the devil’s lettuce while the real monsters like Big Pharma, payday loan sharks, and corporate polluters line up for their tax breaks and government handouts. His latest move? A bill designed to ensure that cannabis businesses, most of them small, independent, and local, can’t deduct basic business expenses from their taxes.

That’s right. If you run a dispensary, a grow, or a processing facility in Oklahoma, where cannabis is perfectly legal under state law, you don’t get the same tax treatment as the liquor store down the street or the pill mill handing out opioids with a wink and a nod. Nope, you’re the enemy in Lankford’s eyes. Some may call it “Madness”.

“Marijuana doesn’t make our families stronger, our streets safer, or our workplaces more productive.” But does anyone really believe Lankford gives a damn about families in Oklahoma? If he did, he’d be pushing for affordable healthcare, better wages, and actual criminal justice reform instead of spending his time making sure cannabis businesses are taxed into oblivion.

Reality check! The people who own and operate cannabis businesses in this state aren’t villains. They aren’t some shadowy cartel pushing heroin in dark alleys. They’re small business owners, parents, neighbors, hard-working people who took a chance on an industry that has brought billions into Oklahoma’s economy. And these same people are now being punished because Lankford and his cronies can’t stomach the idea of a plant being legally sold by anyone other than their corporate overlords.

Lankford and his ilk love to point out that cannabis is “federally illegal,” as if that’s some unshakable moral argument. Meanwhile, the federal government still hands out subsidies to industries that kill people every day. Fossil fuel companies wreck the planet and get billions in tax breaks. Big Tobacco? They pay their dues and keep chugging along. 

Alcohol? No problem. Let’s go ahead and give that industry every deduction under the sun. As corporate overlords continue to poor the glass full for those in power to drink upon.

But cannabis? Oh no, that’s where they draw the line. Even though it’s legal in most of the country in some form. Even though veteran groups, medical patients, and business owners have been begging for fair treatment. Even though Oklahoma itself has more cannabis licenses than any other state and has built a whole damn economy around it.

What Lankford’s bill really does is push small businesses closer to extinction. You think the average dispensary owner is rolling in cash? You think the grower paying rent on a warehouse, covering electric bills, payroll, compliance fees, security, and packaging, is just stacking up gold bars in a hidden bunker? These people already operate on super-thin margins.

Now, thanks to Lankford’s little crusade, they won’t even be able to deduct payroll, rent, or marketing expenses like any other business. They’ll be forced to pay tax on gross income, not net profits. That’s a death sentence for any business without unlimited capitol.

Who gets hurt? The people who put their life savings into this business, believing they were part of something legitimate. The people with families, employees, and customers who rely on them. The same families Lankford claims to care about. Those same “kids” that depend on their parents to do the right thing. 

The same emotional strings that Lankford and his cronies continue to stress are the same issues that matter most to those in the industry. Lankford seems to have his head in a cloud not made from good medicine. Lankford seems to consider himself to be on some sort of higher moral ground. But I could be mistaken.

Let’s talk about families. Lankford loves to act like cannabis is some great evil, some dark force corrupting children and ruining homes. But what about the children of the dispensary owner who now has to close up shop because their tax bill is higher than their profit margin?

What about the employees who are suddenly out of work because their employer can’t afford to operate under this crushing tax scheme?

What about the medical patients, many of them parents themselves, who rely on this industry for affordable access to their medicine?

What about the fact that every dollar taken from cannabis businesses is a dollar not spent on rent, groceries, daycare, or education, or even clothes on “kids” backs?

Lankford doesn’t care about those families. He cares about his political career, his corporate donors, and his tired old culture war against an industry that’s done nothing but create jobs, generate tax revenue, and help people.

It’s about power. It’s about control. It’s about keeping cannabis in the shadows because people like Lankford can’t stand the idea of independent entrepreneurs succeeding outside of their system. 

And let’s be clear, this isn’t about keeping cannabis illegal. It’s about who gets to make money off it. If some multi-state corporation swoops in and starts running the show, Lankford won’t have a word to say. He doesn’t mind businesses getting rich. He just minds you getting rich.

So what do we do? We call this nonsense out for what it is. This is government-sanctioned theft, political grandstanding, and an outright attack on Oklahoma’s small business community. We remind people that the cannabis industry is made up of real people, real families, real workers who are just trying to survive in a system designed to crush them.

Lankford can keep pushing his tired, outdated war against cannabis. But the world is moving on. The only question is how many Oklahoma businesses and families he’ll destroy before he figures that out.