Consummative gratification technologies are often used to attain oblivion and escape from the failure to achieve appetitive gratification. In an unnatural world, technologies of gratification are both unavoidable and fundamental to human satisfaction. The question is not whether we should use them - it is how we should use them. Maybe things will improve, maybe they will get worse but unless we are political utopians it seems very probable that this is broadly the kind of world most people shall continue to inhabit for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the interest in psychopharmacology has grown inversely with the decline of belief in utopian politics.
Political idealism is now just a temporary teenage phase - soon past.
The rest of us are starting to realize that if we cannot change the world to suit human nature, our only option is to change human nature to suit the world. Then again, many people use drugs to fit themselves to the rhythms and demands of industrial society. Drugs may provide energy or alertness on demand by the use of stimulants such as caffeine. This may be necessary in coping with long hours of work, when we feel ill or tired, and when high efficiency is expected. And at the other end of the emotional scale, people use drugs such as alcohol for unwinding and assisting social intercourse.