Soma is a drug in brave new world that is basically the future equivalent of the drug ecstasy. Soma causes people to go on “vacations” and it is how people in brave new world deal with situations that they would rather not deal with. The soma in brave new world is a way for the world controllers to control the people in the world by preventing them from thinking about things that are potentially dangerous to the government. The drug is highly addictive so people like Lenina who took the drug and then stopped intensely need to keep using it. This makes it easy to guarantee that people will continue to use Soma. People like Bernard Marx who do not use soma are outcasts because they do not act or think the same way as others(at least until the middle of the book for Bernard). I think that soma is a commentary by the author on how various ways that people avoid problems through distractions.