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Alcohol can enhance social bonding; nicotine can enhance learning. But what is the best possible use case of cannabis? Can it serve a prosocial function in a specific context?
The only thing I can think of is that it can transiently “heighten” non-cognitive sensations, and so it may be useful for highly sensory experiences — anything from large meals to the highly sensory experience of a beach. This would be a general pleasure-amplifier, which may be worth the cannabis costs if the experience is highly sensory, and would also give us a better memory of the experience (possibly).
Is there any other “benefit” to it? I don’t think if enhances social bonds like alcohol, and its relaxation effects are too transient and come at a higher cost with more anxiety later on.
I have the general impression that the "enhanced social bonding" of alcohol is just the same sort of euphemism that people use to justify the use of cannabis.
Alcohol makes the deliberate thinky bits stop working as well, so the behaviors exhibited by drunk people are less likely to be part of complex and deliberate social maneuvering. Behaving desirably while drunk is a costly signal of actually being desirable and not faking it.
Saying this in so many words is discouraged unless you dress it up in euphemisms like "lowered inhibitions".
I think that half of the effect of alcohol is entirely placebo. Legally and socially, we give a lot of slack to any behavior displayed while inebriated. So being drunk gives you plausible deniability to act on your desires (within reason) without being judged by society or yourself.
For example, consider sexual promiscuity1 in women. Some women are not interested in causal sex, and some are openly promiscuous -- which is typically seen as defection by some other women and invites some social censure. But another strategy for women who are into causal sex is to only display promiscuous behavior when drunk2. Something like "sure, I made out with a stranger in that club, but I was drunk, so it does not count". I might be talking out of my backside here3 but I think it is likely that for a given sex act with a stranger, the fraction of women who would be willing to engage in it while inebriated is 2--3 times the fraction which would engage in it while totally sober.
1 Not that I find anything wrong with that, if there was an endless supply of strangers who mutually wanted to have sex with me, I would probably be rather promiscuous.
2 Of course, this is complicated by the fact that inebriation is also frequently desired for non-instrumental reasons. Which is what makes the plausible deniability work in the first place.
3 The only thing which would qualify me less would be an ordination into the RCC.
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