cave paintings wrote:Have you read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? I remember there being a scene where the 'savage' and a rioting crowd is subdued by 'Soma' toward the end, Huxley's version of a drug that induces sort of mindlessness/helplessness and euphoria. 
As others mentioned, I'm wary of this idea and it's potential for misuse, for numerous reasons.
 Oh Yes..I have a bunch of Huxlys recordings  and often..he is expressing his experiance of these drugs..
Remember Tim Leary and his rsearch with LSD on Prisoners in the 60s..
He found that LSD helped stop alcoholism and hard drug use  and  reduced violence    in   many prisoners  changed them to living   honest crime free lives..
But the government still wouldend understand this..
 I have long time beleaved that there is something in drugs similar to lsd that many people need.. like the mana in the desert that quenched peoples hunger when they were starving..  spoke of..this mana was spoke of in the christian bible..
Too bad that a large part of society will never  understand this idea..
And  a persons conciousness shouldnt be changed with out their knowing it...
[unless their consciousness is so evil and violent that there is no other option except continuing violence..
 In the movie ..[things to come].. a more advanced country  of humans took pity on these primitive waring  people and used the gas of peace  to put them  to sleep long enough to land and disarm them as they slumbered...a smart move to avoid violewnce by an advanced race of people..   
 This would be ok for the benifit of the  inocent to save them  
But doing this without their knowing it would be ok if it stops them from hurting others...
This was a science fiction movie from the 1930s ...