Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) has introduced a bill that would ensure that businesses that sell marijuana or any other controlled substance would not be eligible for federal tax deductions or credits. The legislation comes as new studies continue to show the dangerous health risks associated with the drug.

On Friday, Lankford introduced the “No Deductions for Marijuana Businesses Act,” which would close a potential loophole in the Internal Revenue Code in order to “maintain the prohibition on allowing any deduction or credit associated with a trade or business involved in trafficking marijuana.” The bill notes that cannabis is “prohibited by Federal law” despite numerous state laws that have decriminalized the drug.

“Marijuana doesn’t make our families stronger, our streets safer, or our workplaces more productive,” Lankford told The Washington Stand. “Businesses who sell federally illegal drugs — including marijuana businesses — shouldn’t get federal tax breaks. This bill clarifies federal tax law to make sure a federally illegal product does not have a federally legal tax deduction.”

Currently, the medicinal use of marijuana is legal in 38 states, and 24 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of the drug. As a result, the marijuana industry has seen explosive growth in recent years. The retail market for cannabis is expected to reach $57 billion by 2028, up from $39 billion in 2024. But studies are finding that the expanded use of the drug is leading to dire health consequences.

In a new study published on Tuesday, researchers in Canada found that “the proportion of schizophrenia cases associated with cannabis use disorder nearly tripled, rising from 4% pre-legalization to 10%.” In addition, “The number of people who required hospital care linked to weed use jumped 270% from before legalization to after recreational legalization, researchers found.”

Another new study out of Canada published on Thursday found that those with cannabis use disorder (those who have an inability to stop using the drug despite negative health outcomes) die at three times the rate of those without the disorder. The research also found that those with the disorder “were 10 times as likely to die by suicide as those in the general population” and “were also more likely to die from trauma, drug poisonings and lung cancer.” Alarmingly, research has found that three in 10 marijuana users will develop cannabis use disorder.

In yet another new study released last week out of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, researchers studied the brains of 1,000 recent as well as lifetime marijuana users, finding that “63% of heavy lifetime cannabis users demonstrated reduced brain activity during a working memory task.” In addition, 68% of recent cannabis users also had the same memory issues. The study also found that the drug caused reduced brain activity in other functions like decision-making, attention span, and emotional processing.

Observers have pointed out that a likely cause of the rise of psychological disorders like schizophrenia among cannabis users is due to the drastic increase in THC levels (main psychoactive ingredient) found in modern marijuana, with one study finding that between 1995 and 2015, THC levels rose 212%. The cannabis businesses that Lankford’s bill targets are continuing to push the envelope on developing increasingly potent marijuana strains.

“For too long, the federal government has looked the other way as states have refused to enforce federal prohibitions on illegal drugs,” Quena González, senior director of Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “They start by allowing the possession, then allow selling of federally-prohibited drugs with known effects on cognition, behavior, and addiction. Marijuana possession is now legal under state law in 24 states and the District of Columbia, and in all but one (Virginia) selling marijuana has also been legalized under state law. This quasi-legal status not only harms users in those states by contributing to the patina of respectability, but undermines the rule of law as states essentially flout federal law and the federal government turns a blind eye.”

He continued, “The marijuana epidemic is poised to become a multi-billion dollar industry, dominated by the old tobacco firms and preying on young people who can be converted into life-long consumers at an age when, ironically, the demonstrated harms to brain development will do the greatest damage.”

“Senator Lankford is to be commended for introducing legislation to make sure that the federal tax code is not abused by allowing drug pushers to deduct the cost of procuring and distributing illegal drugs as ‘business expenses,’” González added. “As individual ‘pushers’ give way to store fronts and soon to billion-dollar industrial operations, this bill removes a major financial incentive for larger commercial operations, and reinforces the stigma that should continue to be attached to illegal drug sales.”

“Decline is a choice,” González concluded. “The law is a moral teacher, and we can — and should — push back against the normalization of illegal drugs. And taxpayers should not, under any circumstances, grant financial incentives to an illegal industry that preys upon some of our most vulnerable neighbors.”