All Joshua Chase wanted to do was have a smooth grand opening of his new cannabis dispensary — Oakanna — in Oakland, California. Instead, he got shot.

"They shot and hit me with a ricochet," Chase said.

"It went through the bottom of my foot," Chase added.

This happened more than six weeks ago and to some degree, he wasn't surprised by it.

"This is just what you sign up for being in the cannabis industry," Chase said.

"This is just what comes with the business when you don't have banking," he said.

What's this lack of banking that Chase is talking about? When a typical business receives cash, the owners can easily take the money to a nearby bank and deposit it.

That's not the case with marijuana dispensaries. Because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, most federally-insured banks don't accept deposits from marijuana businesses.

That means many dispensaries have a lot of cash on hand until they can take it to a specialized institution. For the same legal reasons, most cannot accept credit cards either.

In Washington state, in January and February of this year, there were 50 armed robberies of dispensaries.

"If we would have a banking system that was open it would only make a safer for us, it would be more efficient for us," Chase said.

NOT A NEW DEBATE

This debate is not a new one. In fact, dispensary owners for years have been saying how a lack of banking access can create dangerous conditions for employees. After years of debate on this issue, it's possible Congress addresses it this summer, however.

The change could come from the "Safe Banking Act" which would allow dispensaries access to federally-insured banks in states where cannabis is legal.

Lawmakers are attempting to include it in the Bipartisan Innovation Act, which is meant to fund science, computer chips and more.

Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) spoke about including "safe banking" during the first conference committee of the Bipartisan Innovation Act last month.

"Change our banking laws so the cannabis industry isn't operating in the all-cash darkness," Hickenlooper told lawmakers.

The legislation just might be one of the last major bills Congress passes before the election.

More details on whether safe baking is included in the Bipartisan Innovation Act is expected to be revealed later this summer.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — Chirine Touati is one of the millions of people in the U.S. who use marijuana for medical purposes.

“This is concentrated cannabis oil, and then what I do is I put it under my tongue,” said Touati.

She has a medical marijuana card in Utah. Touati uses marijuana to help deal with chronic pain.

“I get really bad burning pain in my feet that can travel all the way the way up my leg and even across my shoulders,” said Touati. “I have multiple sclerosis and I’ve had it for most of my life. I was diagnosed in 2006.”

She says the pain will keep her in bed most of the day on bad days.

She says medical marijuana is the most effective treatment for her pain.

But she says there are many obstacles that keep people like her from getting fair access to medical cannabis in Utah.

She's not alone.

“When we’re talking about access to medicine we’re talking about distance, how far is a patient traveling, how easy is it for a patient to get a medical card, how easy is it for them to have a conversation with their doctor about the topic. All those are little tiny barriers to a patient having access,” said Christine Steinquest, an advocate in Utah who helped pass the state’s medical cannabis law.

While that was a huge step forward, she says the barriers are preventing some patients from getting the care they need.

There are 14 dispensaries in Utah. Michigan, which is just slightly bigger than Utah in square miles, has 410.

“We would like patients to have reasonable access. It’s unreasonable to me to have a patient drive an hour to a dispensary. That’s not realistic. So we have a ways to go,” said Steinquest.

It’s not just a Utah problem. People in other states also say access is a major concern.

“There are some people that need to drive farther than 60 miles,” said Gayle Peterson, a registered nurse in North Dakota.

“One of the biggest things is (a) provider. Quite often, your own doctor you’ve had for many, many years doesn’t want to touch the stuff. Or we’ve heard of larger facilities saying, 'Nope, our providers cannot certify patients for it,'” said Peterson.

Meaning patients may have to seek out specific doctors to prescribe medical marijuana.

Finding a doctor is just one barrier. Price can be another issue for patients.

Touati says the oils she uses can get quite expensive.

“For a gram, it was over $100, for sure,” said Touati.

“It’s very expensive in this state, I mean there’s no way. It would be like a house payment. A couple grand a month,” she added.

Right now, there are bills in several states, including Utah, to examine or expand access to medical cannabis use. They would increase the types of products available to patients, allow patients to grow plants at home and expand access to CBD products among other things.

But Steinquest sees a long road ahead for nationwide access to patients.

“Is there a state with a perfect balance yet? No, I don’t think there is yet. I think we need some more federal action so that business can operate in a manner that makes sense and then maybe we’ll start to see some changes across the board that affect everybody,” she said.

Legislation is moving forward across the country to increase access and decrease business barriers within the marijuana industry.

But some experts say with that legislation comes some concerning safety trends.

Marijuana became legal in Canada in October 2018. The country waited to legalize edible products until 2020 in the hopes of passing more legislation to try and prevent child poisonings.

However, newly published data shows Ontario is still seeing nine times more ER visits for cannabis poisonings in young children. A third of those cases required further hospitalization, and in 4% of those cases, children were admitted to the ICU.

"The industry has evolved to have much stronger, more potent products and these edible products are no exception," said Dr. Sam Wang, a pediatric ER physician at Children's Hospital Colorado. "Kids can get into a lot of THC in these products, and so they can have more profound symptoms, including sedation, coma. We've seen kids with low oxygen because their breathing is low."

Wang says that nearly a decade after legalizing marijuana, Colorado continues to see an increase in calls to poison control and ER visits for accidental cannabis poisonings among children. That increase comes even after the state instituted preventative measures like child-resistant packaging, dose limitations, and restrictions on marketing and gummy products.

Wang says accidental marijuana poisonings among children still aren't as common as calls about household products like laundry detergent and over-the-counter medications. Still, he says there are other concerning trends.

"Those who do use cannabis are using more frequently and are using more products that have higher concentrations of THC — meaning vaping in concentrate use," Wang said. "That in that is in of itself concerning, as there's increasing literature on higher doses of THC use initiating and more frequently at a younger age can lead to long-term health and mental health impacts."

According to a Gallup poll, 68% of Americans now support legalizing marijuana.

A new national survey found nearly half of college students said they consumed cannabis in 2020 – a new record.

Forty-four percent of college students surveyed reported using marijuana in 2020. That was the highest level in the survey's history. 8% said they used marijuana daily or nearly daily last year, up from 5% in 2015.

Some students at Metropolitan State University in Denver, Colorado said smoking marijuana helped them cope with the struggles and loneliness of pandemic life.

At the same time, college students reported drinking far less alcohol. 56% of students surveyed in 2020 reported drinking in the past 30 days, compared to 62% in 2019. Additionally, just 28% reported being drunk in the past 30 days, compared to 35% in 2019.

Binge drinking also fell dramatically. Only 24% of students said they binge drank in 2020, compared to 32% a year earlier. Students told Newsy they stopped drinking as much when the pandemic brought their social lives to a halt.

This story was originally reported by Kellan Howell on Newsy.com.

Related video above: Legal cannabis businesses reached a record $17.5 billion in sales in 2020Amazon said Tuesday that it will stop testing jobseekers for marijuana.The company, the second-largest private employer in the U.S. behind Walmart, is making the change as states legalize cannabis or introduce laws banning employers from testing for it. In March, a New York man sued Amazon, saying the company rescinded his job offer at an Amazon warehouse because he tested positive for marijuana, even though the city banned employers from testing job applicants for cannabis in 2020. Amazon said in a blog post that it will still test workers for other drugs and conduct “impairment checks” on the job. And the company said some roles may still require a cannabis test in line with Department of Transportation regulations.Related video: The Perfect Time of Day and the Best Time of the Year to Apply to JobsSeattle-based Amazon also said Tuesday that it will support the federal legalization of marijuana by pushing lawmakers to pass the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021.