In a shocking series of events that is still under investigation, Las Vegas police on Friday shot and killed Trevon Cole, 21, while serving a warrant that claimed Cole was selling marijuana. According to reports, Cole’s 20-year-old fiancé, Sequioa Pearce—who is 9 months pregnant—was forced to kneel and held at gunpoint in the moments just before Cole was shot.

A police spokesman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that undercover officers had bought marijuana from Cole three times before the warrant was served, and investigators reportedly took an unknown amount of marijuana and digital scales from his home. Pearce, his fiancé, says Cole, who has no criminal record, “did smoke marijuana from time to time,” but was not a drug dealer.

The officer who shot Cole is a 10-year veteran who the Review-Journal reports has been involved in other questionable shootings. Police said he fired his weapon on Cole after Cole made a “furtive movement,” which Pearce denies.

While police investigate the incident, Cole’s family remains shocked and in desperate need of an explanation. Writes the Review-Journal, “They had been preparing for a birth, not a death.”

"We were mentally prepped to know in June we were coming to Vegas to see the baby, to be here for the birth of the baby," said Cole's aunt, Kimeryn Williams. "Not for this."

I don’t need to tell readers how horrifying this episode is. As with other notorious drug raids that have come to light, there are obvious questions here that need asking:

• Did Cole pose such a threat to public safety that officers had to break through his door with guns drawn?

• Why were such forceful tactics used to arrest someone that police claim—at the very best—was a smalltime marijuana dealer?

• How much money and police resources were spent to raid Cole’s home and murder him in front of the mother of his unborn child?

• Were there no murders, rapes, robberies or more serious crimes occurring in Vegas on a Friday night that these officers could have been working to prevent or solve?

The message people need to take from this stomach-turning incident is the one MPP broadcasts over and over again: Marijuana does not kill people, but prohibition does. If marijuana were sold in a legal and regulated market, tragedies like this would cease to exist and police could better spend their time dealing with crimes more serious than the possession of a substance safer than alcohol.

There should be many developments on this story, so please stay tuned to the blog for updates.

Sarah Palin says she doesn’t support making marijuana legal, but during an appearance on Fox Business News this weekend, she agreed with fellow panelist Ron Paul that police have better things to do than arrest nonviolent marijuana offenders.

Check out the video and read her comments below:

“I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts. And if somebody is going to smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in and clean up some of the other problems we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do and not concentrate on such a, relatively speaking, minimal problem that we have in the country.”

A few months back, MPP offered the former Alaska governor $25,000 to give a speech to supporters of a regulated marijuana market, but she did not accept the offer. When she ran as the Republican nominee for vice-president in 2008, Palin admitted to using marijuana in her youth but said she opposed making marijuana because of the “message” it would send to her children. At the time, MPP issued a statement saying, “That she used marijuana is no big deal, but what is a big deal is that she thinks that the 100 million Americans who have used marijuana, including herself, belong in jail. That wouldn’t be good for her kids.”

What’s frustrating about this is seeing, once again, a prominent politician acknowledge the ridiculousness of marijuana prohibition but not have the courage to call for its end. If Gov. Palin truly believes in the limited government she so often promotes, she should not only acknowledge that the government’s war on marijuana users is an enormous infringement on American civil liberties, but more importantly, that it needs to stop.

We’ve already seen one prospective 2012 presidential candidate, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, clearly voice his support for making marijuana legal. Will others follow?

As we’ve noted previously, not even celebrities are immune to the government’s war on marijuana users.

The latest example is Chace Crawford, a 24-year-old actor from the TV show “Gossip Girl,” who was charged Friday with possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. Crawford and his friend were arrested two weeks ago in Texas while driving in a car—with an unlit marijuana cigarette.

The charge is a misdemeanor, but if convicted, Crawford could face up to six months in prison.

Six months in prison. For a single unlit joint.

I would love to know how many taxpayer dollars will end up being spent to arrest, process, and prosecute Crawford simply for possessing a substance that is safer than alcohol. By the way, it’s worth pointing out (as MPP’s Steve Fox and his co-authors did in the book “Marijuana is Safer”) that Crawford’s arrest will almost definitely drive him to use that more dangerous substance—alcohol—since doing so comes with none of the legal consequences or social ridicule that accompany marijuana use.

The disturbing subtext to this is that Crawford’s horrifically disproportionate potential punishment is coming to light only because he is a celebrity. More than 750,000 Americans are arrested every year for marijuana possession—and the vast majority of their stories will never get told.

Earlier this week, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) signed two bills that will regulate the state’s booming medical marijuana industry and bring definitive legal status to about half of Colorado’s estimated 1,100 dispensaries.

The new law will make Colorado home to the largest number of state-licensed dispensaries anywhere in the United States. A state-regulated medical marijuana program is up and running in New Mexico and similar programs will soon be operational in Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. — but the number of sanctioned dispensaries to be allowed in each of those states is fewer than 10. Colorado’s law will authorize hundreds, and potentially more if future demand increases.

The Centennial State now has the opportunity to set a national example for how to oversee and regulate a large, orderly, and well-functioning medical marijuana industry. And while the country keeps its eye on California to see if that state’s voters decide to lift marijuana prohibition entirely this November, Colorado seems increasingly poised to take that next crucial step as well. A Rasmussen telephone poll released May 15 showed that 49 percent of likely Colorado voters support taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, with an additional 13 percent still undecided.

The City of Brotherly Love just got a little kinder.

Beginning today, anyone in Philadelphia who is found possessing up to one ounce of marijuana could have his or her charge downgraded from a misdemeanor to a summary offense.

Under the new policy, which was announced in April by new district attorney Seth Williams, offenders will still be processed by law enforcement, but most can have their records expunged after they take a class and pay a $200 fine. Officials hope the change will help clear the city’s clogged court system.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"You're still arrested, you're still brought in, you're still fingerprinted, you're still given a prelim," said Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

Only at the preliminary arraignment are procedures changing, as many cases will be "diverted" from misdemeanor charges, said McCann.

That won't be automatic either.

Some reasons for withholding leniency for pot possession include attempting to sell, being caught during a serious crime, and having a criminal record.”

While the new policy is a far cry from removing all penalties for marijuana possession, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Today, the City of Los Angeles will begin enforcing its ordinance regulating storefront medical marijuana dispensing collectives.  The ordinance will force most of the city’s collectives to shut down (over 400 establishments), while the remaining 138 or so (those who registered with the city prior to Nov. 13, 2007) will have to comply with new zoning laws that are stricter than those for adult entertainment businesses, retail alcohol vendors, and pharmacies.

I will be the first to acknowledge that thoughtful planning and zoning are important for any community. But the way that Los Angeles has chosen to regulate medical marijuana treats marijuana as if it were far more dangerous than the products sold by pharmacies and liquor stores and willfully thrusts the city into an even worse economic position than it’s already in.

Once their neighborhood dispensaries have been shut down, forced to move, or so overloaded with business that long lines render the experience too inconvenient, I predict that many Angelenos will turn to the traditional unregulated street dealer for marijuana.  That means sales taxes won’t be paid on those transactions, it will be impossible to monitor the quality or origin of that marijuana, and the typical turf wars and crime associated with black markets will become more prevalent in our communities.

From an economic standpoint, the ordinance will shut down over 400 businesses, putting at least 1,000 people out of work and vacating all of those retail spaces – a sizeable impact on the city’s already shabby economy.

As with many other aspects of our nation’s drug control policies, you really have to abandon common sense to see how this will be better for Los Angeles.  And frankly, I’m tired of doing that.

A ballot initiative in Detroit that would make it legal for adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana for personal use has been certified by city election officials, according to local reports.

A local group called Coalition for a Safer Detroit turned in more than 6,000 signatures to place the initiative on November’s ballot. According to the Detroit News, the City Council now has 30 days to pass the initiative into law or it will be up to voters to pass it in November.

Should the initiative pass, Detroit will join the growing ranks of cities that are now taking it upon themselves to implement sensible marijuana laws in the absence of federal leadership.

Even when medical marijuana patients are protected from arrest and provided safe access under their state’s law, they may still face forms of discrimination, as we are unfortunately reminded time and time again.

Perhaps the most tragic and emotionally charged instance is when parents lose custody of their children because a court or judge rules that their marijuana use, even if it’s medicinal, constitutes child endangerment.

Luckily, a ruling last week by the Colorado Court of Appeals may help prevent future instances, at least in that state. In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge court ruled that a parent’s use of medical marijuana does not necessarily lead to child endangerment, and that the impact of a parent’s medical marijuana use on a child should be determined on a case-by-case basis. In this case, a father had agreed to undergo drug screenings as part of the custody plan made with his divorced wife, but then asked a judge to waive that requirement after he received a license to use medical marijuana for knee and back pain resulting from a motorcycle accident.

The court found that the father’s medical marijuana use in no way “represented a threat to the physical and emotional health and safety of the child, or otherwise suggested any risk of harm.”

The ruling was clear, however, that the court was not expressing an opinion on whether medical marijuana use constituted endangerment; “rather, we conclude only that endangerment was not shown here,” the opinion stated. “We also express no view on father’s constitutional right to use medical marijuana.”

In a related development, Noah Kirkman, the 12-year-old Canadian boy who has been in an American foster home since 2008, was ordered back to Canada and into the custody of his grandparents this weekend. As I wrote previously on the blog, his mother, Lisa, had been deprived custody of her son because of her use of and activism for medical marijuana.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said this week that he has no plans to try to make the state’s recently passed medical marijuana law more restrictive—as he had suggested he might do while on the campaign trail—but that he wants to delay implementation of the law by at least six months.

“I think the public would agree it has to be done correctly,’’ he told local outlets.

Christie’s actions are causing concern among some lawmakers and advocates, who say the process shouldn’t be unnecessarily prolonged. The state legislature has already passed the law, and there are seriously ill patients in New Jersey who are being forced to go without access or protection until it takes effect.

Stay tuned for updates.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak has recently taken to Minnesota’s airwaves in a misguided attempt to blame violence at the hands of criminal gangs on consumers of marijuana. “When you pay for marijuana, you are paying for the bullet that goes into the head of someone on the streets,” he told the Star Tribune, in one instance.

Today, MPP called upon Mayor Rybak to get honest about what actually fuels violence in the marijuana trade: prohibition. Here’s the statement by MPP’s Steve Fox:

“Like alcohol prohibition in the last century, marijuana prohibition has helped to fuel violent crime in Minnesota and across the country. Mayor Rybak is out of touch with reality if he does not recognize that prohibition—and any elected official who supports it—is to blame for giving criminals a virtual monopoly on marijuana’s lucrative trade. It is unrealistic to assume we can somehow magically remove the demand for marijuana. The only true solution is to regulate marijuana, and bring its sale under the rule of law, the same way we ended the criminal violence that stemmed from alcohol prohibition.

“If the mayor wants to end violence associated with marijuana, he too needs to be honest, and join the growing ranks of those calling for an end to prohibition and the failed policies that drive money into the hands of criminals, and yes, bullets into people’s heads.”

Well, as it turns out, the first call I got back about our release was from Mayor Rybak himself. He was not too pleased, to say the least. To his credit, the mayor seemed more nuanced and open-minded about the issue than some of the Minnesota headline writers have made him out to be. He reiterated that this is a complicated subject, but that he is open to a debate on solutions. “I’m telling people that we need to talk about this,” he told me.

If you’re in the Minneapolis area and want to tell Mayor Rybak what you think about this, he responds regularly to comments made on his Facebook page.