Śiva's intoxicants are supposed to image svātantrya — total sovereignty, the freedom of a god who needs nothing. But the moment the substance becomes the way you reach the state, the image inverts: you're no longer Vātūla Nātha, the drunk lord who is free. You're just intoxicated, and the thing you used to picture freedom now holds the leash. The freedom-tech becomes the freedom-tax at the dosage line.
The Live Wire: This generalizes far past cannabis. Any state you can only enter by acquiring something — a drink, a scroll, a purchase, a person, a hit of approval — is a state that owns you back. The tell is dependence: if the state can't arrive without the trigger, the trigger is the master and you are the paśu (the bound beast), no matter how free the state feels. The Śaiva discernment isn't "substances bad" — it's that the substance is at most a "we have to start somewhere" on-ramp, and the whole point is to need it less, not more. Second framing: the inversion test for any pleasure — can I reach this without the thing? If yes, the thing is a tool. If no, the thing is a boss. Sovereignty isn't the high; it's the ability to walk away from the high and still have it.
Related: Addiction as the Loss of Sovereignty, Svātantrya vs Paratantra