One of the prescription pills frequently abused by teenagers in Ventura County is a muscle relaxant called Soma.

I find that fascinating and somewhat ironic, because "soma" is the name of the substance doled out by the totalitarian state to pacify the masses in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World.

It's not immediately clear why the muscle relaxant was named Soma. I called the maker of Soma, Meda Pharmaceuticals, at their headquarters in New Jersey, and they said I would need to speak to their spokesman in Sweden. The spokesman did not respond to an e-mail.

An article in Time Magazine offers some further etymology. The article points out that "soma" was the Sanskrit name of an ancient intoxicating drink from India and the Greek word for "body."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,892617,00.html

This is not an opinion blog, and I am not here to judge Soma or the company that named and produces it. But given that many of the people I spoke to about teen prescription pill abuse expressed concerns about the ubiquitous role of prescription drugs in today's world, examining the role of a drug named "soma" in Brave New World adds an interesting perspective to the discussion.

A literary refresher:

In Brave New World, people are grown in test tubes, not born. In a rigid class system imposed by the all powerful rulers of this world, people are categorized into groups that have specific social functions. For example, the Alphas are on top and have the most intellectual jobs. The social order essentially prohibits individuality. People spend their free time playing complicated games, having socially-acceptable promiscuous sex (both monogamy and pregnancy are taboo), participating in rituals and taking "soma," a drug that takes users on a mental holiday from stress, anxiety, sadness and anything else that would upset the unthinkingly happy people who inhabit Huxley's futuristic world.

There are a few malcontents in this fictional society, but they are largely repressed. Then, one day, a young man  who grew up on an Indian reservation comes to the "civilized" world. His moral values are almost diametrically opposed to those of the "civilized" world, and he's read (and somehow understood) Shakespeare.

Before he kills himself at the end of the book, the Controller (read: Head Honcho) Mustapha Mond explains to The Savage the benevolent ideals behind the massively repressive social structure. Part of the idea, he says, is to create stability by allowing people to indulge. Here's what he says about Soma:

"... What you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed to play free, that there really aren't any temptations to resist. And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and by years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears -- that's what soma is."

It bears mentioning here that Huxley had a deep interest in drugs. His book, "The Doors of Perception" talks about his experience taking mescaline.

Here's what's so interesting about this to me:

Many brand name drugs have names that sound like things that would come out of a professor's mouth in a science fiction novel: Prozac, Xanax, Zyprexa ... But when I first heard of a drug called "soma," in June, it meant something to me. It immediately reminded me of Brave New World.

Name recognition is something all brands strive for, but I have to wonder whether this is what they had in mind.