we invite you to follow us on twitter. the handle ajinsidestory. and sunshiny new stadiums ch the nfl foot the bill? join us for that one, i'm ray >> on "america tonight": >> it's been 21 days since nurse practitioner returned home to loomis california from an ebola treatment center in leone. >> go ahead and take your temperature, 97.5. >> the biggest challenge of the quarantine is contact with other people. >> for alice, the

quarantine was a minor inconvenience compared to the six months she spent in sierra leone. >> also tonight. >> after a year of canvassing nearly 70% of d.c. voters said yes to legalizing the use of marijuana in the city. but they still can't buy it or sell it. >> thanks for joining us, i'm joie chen. a note now about governing and the governed. outside the beltway people often view washington, d.c. as being different and it is true. the rules are different here. case in point: is the effort to legalize medical marijuana which voters thought they had approved approved, but there's still cannabis confusion in the district. at christof putzel reports.

>> here in the nation's capital. there's another kind of happy hour going on. some call it a cipher, instead of a beer people pass around a blunt. which as of february 26th is legal in the district of columbia as long as it is in your own home. >> people have been doing this for thousands of years. so it shouldn't be a surprise that we're doing it now. >> kimon freeman is a local radio hose and activist. he has been arrested more than six times for marijuana possession. in d.c., someone is arrested for pot every two hours. 92% of those are black. montu remembers. >> i was kicked out of college for marijuana possession. >> that's actually a pretty big deal. >> yeah. my dad told me i

f 'ed up my life. but i'm doing already now. >> one less plane to worry about. >> marijuana district was a disaster. we had the highest rate of incarceration in the country. >> adam has been at the forefront of the fight to legalize marijuana since 2010. >> four to 5,000 a year just in the district of columbia arrested incarcerated, 750,000 people are going to jail in this country for marijuana, some for a day, some for ten years. it's not right. >> he owns two marijuana related businesses until the feds showed up. >> both stores were raided and all of my employees were arrested and when that happens it really was sort of a moment of truth where it was like you

know what i think i need to spend some time changing the law. >> reporter: on november 4th, 2014 that's exactly what he and the d.c. cannabis campaign did. >> we kept track of signature collectors around the city. >> reporter: after a year nearly 70% of d.c. voters said yes to legalizing marijuana in the city. >> if so these are recently germinated cannabis seeds. >> an individual can now possess nearly two ounce he of marijuana and have plants at home but can't buy it or sell it. >> we're not trying to legalize marijuana, tax and regulate marijuana so more people can smoke marijuana anded a edibles. what we're trying to do is lessen the number going to jail for these offenses. >> he is concerned. >> frankly right now anybody can go into then

anyone else's house and smoke marijuana and eat an edible. >> he wrote a regulation that allowed marijuana to be sold but also taxed and regulated. >> when you have a substance like that, you need to recognize that not everyone is in the same place, do some form of regulation, you take it out of the hands of the politician he and put it in the haghts of hands of the regulators and see if it's a good plan. >> why is it such a difficult regulation to pass? >> we have 640,000 people that live in the city. unfortunately we don't have voting rights in congress. >> reporter: because washington, d.c. is not a state and has no voting power in the house or senate a few members of congress do have the right to block legislation in the city especially popular vote.

>> a person from maryland put a rider on the budget appropriation is that stated the district of columbia was not allowed to legalize or regulate marijuana. >> two in particular, andy harris and jason chafitz from utah said its legalization would create chaos in the district. >> why would you think? >> i have no idea, they have no problem coming after d.c. but if they were to go to their home district and have federal involvement coming down that causes a war. >> before the law went into effect, congressman chafitz sent letters acknowledge saying they have broad powers to legislate among other items any

district of columbia employee who related to any initiative of regulation 1071. d.c. mayor muriel bowser made it clear. >> we know the residents of the district of columbia spoke loud and clear last november 4th and our government is prepared to implement and enforce initiative 71 in the district of columbia. >> we have been mealg e-mailing and -- >> it's a handful of voters that are speaking up. they don't have the votes in the house to overturn our initiative they don't have it in the senate, and if they did have the ability to do that the president would veto it.

i think we're in a safe place. the initiative is law. >> it may be law but it's not clear who will enforce it. there are over 40 law enforcement agencies in washington, d.c. on top of that, more than a quarter of the land is federal property where it's illegal to smoke. corey barnett says congress's interference has made the d.c. pot law impossible to enforce. >> it is difficult for law enforcement telling whether or not you handing me was for some cannabis that i just gave you or was it for because you owed me $300. >> you believe the black market could actually grow as a result >> absolutely. i don't believe someone is going to spend hundreds of dollars for high quality product and in turn

just give it away. >> the question is are we going to put people in the district of columbia, i don't think so, i think they should butt out. >> right now, they have no way to overturn an act of congress. limbo. christof putzel, al jazeera washington, d.c. >> latest vote on capitol hill 49 republicans joined 200 democrats to prevent the drug enforcement administration from acting on that. that was a big chain in that vote as just 28 republicans supported the same proposal two years earlier. next here, when leslieed when legalized marijuana goes up in smoke. >> house on fire, house on fire.

>> an unintended consequence of colorado's pot boom and what the state can do to stop it. later here, at a distance. she went to help the sickest patients in the hot zone then suffered her own isolation at home. face to face with ebola and how she survived. and hot on "america tonight's" website now. a sheriff born in mayberry, he was the law but a death in the family turned him against the swat team he created. find

>> protestors are gathering... >> there's an air of tension right now... >> the crowd chanting for democracy... >> this is another significant development...

>> we have an exclusive story tonight, and we go live... >> in our fast forward segment a different pot boom. users seeking outs a more potent high have cooked up concentrated substance he like hash oil. "america tonight's" lori jane gliha looked into a explosive problem. >> reporter: cannabis concentrates called dabs are one of the most fast growing parts of the industry. concentrates could reach up to

90% thc content. at this private marijuana social club on the outskirts of denver almost everyone is dabbing. while dabs can be manufactured safely using expensive commercial equipment a rising number of home cooks are trying to make concentrates by watching how to videos on youtube . >> you squish it down. >> the house is on fire the house is on fire. >> the concentrates are as dangerous as meth labs now. >> kevin is a federal intelligence analyst and tracks the are extraction labs. >> they are holding a pyrex dish

that has gas expelling out onto their clothing, onto their person, once that ignition source explodes into fumes flames. >> this is our most recent ones where the actual strush caught on structureactually caught on fire. >> he shows us some cases. >> no skin there. >> completely singhed singed off. >> while some municipalities have passed ordinances in many places it is still perfectly

legal. you might call robert tillory lucky, he says he survived a butane hash oil explosion. thc. >> do you it out in a well ventilated area like this. >> haven't you seen people outside that have done that and it doesn't go well, either? >> i've never witnessed it not going well unless there was a spark or a flame around. >> reporter: he says he's found a safe way to work with butane and wants to educate others. >> you can do this fairly quickly, you make it every day? >> i make it every day. >> do you think dabs are the flex best thing? >> dabs are the next wave to go through the community. like wherever people have not sensed it yet, when they get them, they are going to want to try them. >> reporter: the victims of

these explosions often end up here at the university unit. >> this is our tub room, we have two of them. and this is the first place that most of our patients come. >> dr. gordon lindburg is the un's medical director. >> we had two the last month and another one showed up a couple of days ago. >> dr. lindburg noticed the usual painkillers had no effect. >> first few patients that came in we were giving them the narcotics that we usually use and it just wasn't working. what i worry about is how much marijuana people are taking now as a result of these laws. we never had people falling off of balconies. we never had people ending up in emergency rooms with frank psychosis from too much marijuana. we never had anybody withdrawing from it. but now with these extraction

methods you are dealing with almost pure thc and they are putting that into candy. >> fast-forward to that daily rich walt of making ritual ever making hash oil, making it illegal to manufacture marijuana concentrates with dangerous substances like butane. next at death's door. >> i never have seen as much death as i did when i was over there. >> but she survived her work in the hot zone. the ebola crisis and what it means for americans who go to help. >> the new al jazeera america primetime. get the real news you've been looking for. at 7:00, a thorough wrapup of the day's events. then at 8:00, john seigenthaler digs deeper into the stories of the day. and at 9:00, get a global perspective on the news. weeknights, on al jazeera america . >> weeknights on al jazeera america.

>> join me as we bring you an in-depth look at the most important issues of the day. breaking it down. getting you the facts. it's the only place you'll find... the inside story. >> ray suarez hosts "inside story". weeknights, 11:30 eastern. on al jazeera america.

>> weeks after it looked like the fight against ebola had turned a corner in west africa confirmation of a new case in liberia's capital monrovia raises new alarm and questions. if the outbreak is not over, will more help be needed and will the word be once again willing to step up? among the health care workers who came to help, a california woman who took her expertise right into the hot zone and suffered the consequences for weeks afterwards. "america tonight's" sheila macvicar brings us her story. >> good morning. >> good morning carolyn how are you. >> i'm good i'm good. my last day, hmm? >> it's been 21 days since nurse practitioner karen dominguez returned home to loomis, california from an ebola leone. >> go ahead and take your temperature.

97.5. >> are you having any chills? >> no. >> unexplained hemorrhage or bruising or any other unusual symptoms. morning. >> good morning. >> dominguez shares her home with a family of four but no touching is allowed. >> going to say bye. >> most rg critical is contact with people. i'm very touchy feely. people surrounding me, my friends, family, loved ones. >> reporter: for dominguez the quarantine was a minor inconvenience compared to the six weeks she experiential in sierra leone, volunteering to fight ebola with the international medical corps. there this is the picture of the ebola treatment unit that i worked at. >> the world health organization reported almost 200 new cases of ebola in sierra leone in the

past three weeks. dominguez estimates 40 ebola patients were admitted to her unit while she was there. >> i wanted to go there because that's really where the help was needed. we ended up having a pretty big surge of patients while we were there. the ambulance would sound the sirens so we could hear it coming. >> reporter: before the patient could even be touched the entire ambulance had to be disinfected with chlorine. a process that could take up to half an hour. >> one process that was difficult for all of us is when we would hear of a patient coming and finally get to the process of opening the ambulance and getting to the patient, they were already deceased. >> when a single slipup could have deadly consequences the team adhered fan at cli to fan at

fanatically to strict safety proceed colts. >> i felt such a responsibility that i had their back. >> but dominguez and her colleagues harbored no illusions of vulnerability. >> i knew going into this there is a very high risk with treating ebola patients. there's always a risk and simply if you are in a ward and you are trying to do a blood draw and a patient moves you could get a needle stick. there is always a risk. >> dominguez feared less for her safety than for her patients. ravaged buy disease that kills nearly 70% of those it infects. >> i have entered into a situation where i've never seen as much death athan i did when i was over there. it was frustrating at times

because our job is to help people and fix people and save people. sorry . >> reporter: the children were hardest to watch. >> nobody under five years old had ever survived ebola. we always approached one yearlies, five yearlies, this was the one, the one that was going to survive. >> so when a patient emerged alive the entire staff celebrated. >> i think if those times, those few times that i saw somebody emerge from the habi-shower that i knew was going discharged, i knew my time was there worth while and i could make a difference. >> the work was emotionally uplifting and always dangerous and it brought the team ever

close are. >> there was this connection that we really relied on each other for our own health and sometimes ultimately our own survival through this. >> there's dolly up there. >> now that she's back in california dominguez has taken advantage of her quarantine to catch up on projects on the house, reacquaint her with her dogs and go running parks. it is the one place in the state of california that will allow her to jog. when she does speak with neighbors she's carefully where she's been. >> i am careful that i went to west africa, i treated ebola patients, i'm back and i'm in quarantine. i think there is definitely a stigma in society with many to folks folks that have limited information.

>> the lack of information originally caused a rift in her own family. >> bryson was my oldest, he didn't want me to go. he was very angry. >> her youngest, had to educate his reluctant siblings. >> i wanted to make sure they knew she wasn't doing it for selfish reasons. she truly had altruistic reasons. she needed to do this and she felt passionately driven to do this. >> i think adam and i kind of have a connection that he knew he knew why i was going. you know? so -- >> her eldest son is getting married in may eventually accepted her decision. >> he really came around, he understood. he supported me 100%. and i just remember him saying as i was leaving, he said i just

want my mom at my wedding. so -- >> on wednesday, dominguez quarantine finally came to an end and with it the small fear that nags her throughout. >> yeah i feel really fortunate, i didn't think i would have symptoms but you know you always kind of have that in the back of your mind. so it feels good to be done with the monitoring. >> and done with having to keep herself from touching the friends and family she loves. >> hey you guys you get to hug me today. it's hug-day! oh! and truly, i think it's so important to send the message to the general public that you cannot get ebola from somebody that's not sick. you just cannot. absolutely. >> good to hug you. >> the fear of ebola hasn't stopped dominguez from thinking about going back to sierra leone. but for now she's happy just to

enjoy everyday life. >> come here, come here, look what i got. >> sheila macvicar, al jazeera. >> and she is still doing whatever she can to help. we salute the bravery of all ebola. that is "america tonight." tell us tonight at aljazeera.com/"america tonight." come back we'll have more of "america tonight" tomorrow. >> al jazeera's investigative unit has tonight's exclusive report. >> from coast to coast. >> people selling fresh water for fracking. >> stories that have impact. >> we lost lives. >> that make a difference. >> senator, we were hoping that we could ask you some questions about your legal problems. >> that open your world. >> it could be very dangerous. >> i hear gunshots. >> a bullet came right there through the window. >> it absolutely is a crisis.

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