Ana Watson and her son Preston rest at home after Preston's EEG at Children's Hospital. The Denver Post's series on the Watsons, "Desperate Journey," was named a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize on April 20. (Joe Amon, The Denver Post)

Denver Post series on marijuana extract CBD named a Pulitzer finalist

Three Denver Post journalists were named finalists for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in explanatory reporting for their three-part series on how Colorado’s marijuana laws have drawn hundreds of parents seeking medical help for their children.

The Pulitzer judges cited the work by reporter John Ingold, photographer Joe Amon and videographer Lindsay Pierce as an “intimate and troubling portrayal.”


READ DESPERATE JOURNEY, A PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST


The Post’s series followed 12-year-old Preston as his mother, Ana Watson, uprooted her family in North Carolina for a home in Colorado Springs with hopes of helping stop her son’s debilitating seizures with CBD, an oil extract of marijuana.

The three journalists followed the Watson family for months as the family found their journey was harder than expected and the answers they sought more elusive than happy anecdotes seemed to promise.

Colorado and a strain of marijuana low in THC — the plant’s psychoactive chemical — were the only hope the Watsons had left.

The award in the category was given to Zachary R. Mider of Bloomberg News for his explanation of how so many U.S. corporations dodge taxes and why lawmakers and regulators have a hard time stopping them.

Also a finalist in the category were three Reuters’ journalists: Joan Biskupic, Janet Roberts and John Shiffman, for their analysis revealing how an elite cadre of lawyers enjoy extraordinary access to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Read a complete list of the Pultizer Prize winners and finalists here.

This story was first published on DenverPost.com