High Science LYNN JOHNSON With Marijuana’s rising acceptance comes more debate about it’s potential benefits and drawbacks. LYNN JOHNSON

Establishing shot – not an average establishing shot but it works well within this project Marijuana’s advocates believe the long-maligned plant can enhance life—and help deliver people from sickness and pain.

Marijuana grows in an irrigated field on the plains east of Denver—discreetly hidden behind rows of corn. Some of this harvest will be used to make CBD oil, which is in such demand to treat children with seizures that cannabis growers have stepped up production.

Lily Rowland receives a dose of an oil derived mainly from cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive substance in marijuana. She used to suffer hundreds of seizures with violent convulsions every day. Her family moved to Colorado, which voted to legalize marijuana in 2012, so that she could begin a daily regimen.

The drug doesn’t work for everyone, but today nine-year-old Lily is often seizure free and on her worst days has only one or two.

Kim Clark’s younger son, Caden, 11, suffers from severe epilepsy Kim Clark’s younger son, Caden, 11, suffers from severe epilepsy. Despite having brain surgery twice, he’d never had a seizure-free day until he started taking CBD oil.

Jordan and his brother Jared are growing about 36,000 plants, most of them strains developed to produce high concentrations of CBD, which is sought after for its medical uses. The men believe their harvest will help the thousands of families seeking high-CBD oil.

At a medical marijuana dispensary in the Los Angeles area, Damaris Diaz checks the scent and stickiness of her products.

Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist at New York University, is more skeptical. He’s leading a clinical trial to test CBD against a placebo in treating forms of epilepsy. “There’s real potential,” he says, “but we urgently need valid data.”