The purpose of soma is to help people deal with or forget about their problems. I'm assuming that soma is addicting because of how some characters in the story react when they are deprived of it. Soma is also used as part of their conditioning. It helps keep them from reacting in ways they were conditioned not to. Since they are normal human emotions it must be hard to condition all of it out so that is why soma was created. They must have run into some problems in the past that inspired the creation of the pill. Soma in the book is what we would probably consider an Illegal drug here. It sort of reminds me of marijuana but in tablet form or other THC's. The reason being is because of the euphoria marijuana makes you feel. In the book
