Soma Drug – Where It Came From

For many of us who haven’t had a prescription for it, Soma didn’t first appear to us in the sense of a soma drug but rather one of the various other references throughout history in time.  Some of us remember its affects in Aldous Huxley’s book called Brave New World.  In the year 2540, citizens must consume Soma, a drug that will alter the mind, in order to remain happy and escape from their lives that are controlled by the government.  Everyone faces a soma addiction and the few that aren’t are considered social outcasts with unusual optimism.
Before the soma drug form in Brave New World, though, it was referenced in some of the oldest sacred scriptures of Hinduism.  In Hindu, Soma is a sacred drink as well as a god.   To understand why it was considered sacred, though, we must go back even further.  Back when human civilization began, there was a wild plant that had been busy growing untouched for thousands of years in the area that is now India.  Humans soon began experimenting with local plants to see what they could offer in terms of healing powers and at the top of the list was the Soma plant.
Around the years of 1500 BC, the soma plant was being used in animal sacrifice and was a main element to complicated sacrificial ceremonies.  Priests would swallow the soma juice to put themselves into hallucinogenic states to perform the sacrifices needed, usually going on for hours.  Now, in the 21st century and 3500 years later, we are still using Soma but in a completely different manner.  The soma drug we are familiar with today does not qualify as a hallucinogen as the original soma plant did.  The soma drug itself came about in 1959 by a pharmacologist named Dr. Frank M. Berger. 
Dr. Berger’s purpose was to create a pain medication that would be very effective in the treatment of specific severe muscle injuries.  He managed to pull it off and, with that, developed the soma drug we are most familiar with today.  From a hallucinating drink for priests to a substance that the government uses to control citizens in the future to a powerful pain medication to treat sports injuries, soma actually offers us a form of cultural variety that most medicines do not carry.  And although extreme in the other examples and even though it does carry some health risks, the soma drug we see today is relatively safe and being prescribed daily to thousands of patients.

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