MLK marijuana mash-up: "I Have A Dream..." we are free at last from pot prohibition

In this post a few months ago on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed "I Have A Dream" speech, I asked this question: Do (and should) marijuana reform advocates consider themselves civil rights activists like MLK?." Now, as a way to honor the special day in which we honor the legacy of Dr. King's work, I provide this abridged and tweaked version of famed "I Have A Dream" speech:

One score and four years ago, Congress enacted the Controlled Substances Act. This momentous decree came as a great prohibition to millions Americans who had been enjoying the flames of a plant. It came as a notable break to end the long American history of freedom to grow and use marijuana. Forty four years later, the American pot user still is not free. Forty four years later, the life of the American pot user is still sadly crippled by the manacles of marijuana prohibition and the chains of incarceration. Forty four years later, the American pot user lives on a peculiar island of marijuana prohibition in the midst of a vast ocean of alcohol and tobacco and prescription drug use and abuse. Forty four years later, the American pot user still languishes in the corners of American black markets and finds himself in exile in his own land....

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, men who like marijuana as well as men who like alcohol, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This exciting winter of legitimate marijuana sales will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Twenty Fourteen is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the American pot user needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the American pot user is granted his liberty and rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges....

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood with marijuana as well as with alcohol.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the intoxicant they responsibly enjoy but by the content of their character....

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exhalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I will go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"