It is the around-the-corner brand of hope that prompts people to action, while the distant hope acts as an opiate. Eric Hoffer
[On the newspapers of the Craw Press:] Their politics are an opiate to prevent folk thinking. John Buchan
Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstasy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face. Thomas Mann
Spending is an opiate to many people, a balm to disappointments, frustrations, emptiness. If the individual transforms that inner distress, there is less need for drugs and distractions. Marilyn Ferguson