Soma: Epithet and Cocaine of the future

'The return to civilization was for her the return to soma, was the possibility of lying in bed and taking holiday after holiday, without ever having to come back to a headache or a fit of vomiting, without ever being made to feel as you always felt after  peyotl, as though you'd done something so shamefully anti-social that you could never hold up your head again. Soma played none of these unpleasant tricks. The holiday it gave was perfect and, if the morning after was disagreeable, it was so, not intrinsically, but only by comparison with the joys of the holiday.' Pg 154
Throughout the novel soma is associated with all that is good in the world. It is an escape from all the troubles of every day life and the stress and fear. For most people it almost seems to be their life line. They all constantly carry it with them so in case an unpleasant situation arises they can just take a half gramme and feel better. At the end of the day every worker excitedly awaits their soma ration. When Linda finally returns to civilization she instantly begins taking it in massive proportions. However, soma is not without its implications. It seems to be as addictive as a drug possessing the mind of its taker. Like a drug it can also be harmful to a person's health Linda begins taking it non stop when she re-enters civilization and within a month or two she slips into a sort of soma induced coma and eventually dies from it. Others find its numbing affects to be unnatural and even loathsome. Helmholtz and Bernard frequently refuse to take soma because they feel it does nothing for them except numb reality when they would rather feel. At the end of the novel John and Helmholtz begin throwing the vials filled with it out the window, calling it poison and reprimanding the use of it, saying it takes away a person's freedom. It is for this purpose exactly that Huxley includes soma in the novel and gives it such an important role. Huxley attempts to prove that just because something is related to positive feelings doesn't mean it can't have harmful and sometimes lethal effects. The addiction to such a substance can in fact take away your freedom by making you dependent on the item. In trying to control your feelings of pain or discomfort you actually allow the substance to control you further. Soma is used as an example of things that have a similar effect in society such as drugs and alcohol.