Soma, a narcotic tranquilizer in tablet and vapor form, is regularly taken by all members of society in order to produce feelings of euphoric happiness.
Inspired by Huxley's trip to India in the mid-1920s, is based on the historical soma drink, used in Hindu rituals to induce a hallucinogenic state.
In Brave New World Revisited, Huxley states that he based soma not on the Greek word but on the Vedic "nectar of the gods", a liquid necessary for certain rituals and identified in 1969 to have been created from pressed juice from the fly agaric hallucinogenic mushroom.
[1] In Brave New World, the fictional soma was the product of six years of research by thousands of pharmacologists and biochemists, who sought to create the ideal intoxicant.
The Controllers of the World-State encourage the use of soma for the benefit of the state, reducing unrest and subversive ideas by ensuring people are happy, and thereby preventing war.