"Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant." Sounds like Pot, huh? Actually it's the drug Soma from Huxley's Brave New World.
Soma was arguably the best tool the government had for controlling its population. It sedates, calms, and most importantly distracts a person from realizing that there's actually something very, very wrong—namely, that the citizens of the World State are enslaved.
The difference here is that I think a few tokes makes us more aware, rather than less. Pass the pipe.