Just finished reading Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. This is another on my long list of "I should have read that a long time ago". It's easy to see that many of the other sci fi books I have read in recent years have borrowed heavily from this book. The ideas of eugenics and pleasure-controlled society are disturbing. I suppose, like 1984, one sees the things from the book happening in today's society, which is, of course, what these books are about - a warning about what we could become.
Notes In The Margin
The Margin is Too Narrow
About
Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes. Sometimes, they're the same person. (The Truth. Terry Pratchett)
Another to consider in this area, if you've not read it, is Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We". I read the Clarence Brown translation from Penguin, but can't find that on Amazon.com.
Skimming through it now, it reminds me of Flatland (which I'm currently muddling my way through).
Read this in high school and it was immensely important in the development of my subsequent world view. It's hard not to see the parallels between the book and our world today - and while we're still a long way off from some elements, you rightly point out that eugenics and control via drugs are here today, if in somewhat more basic forms.