Religion, Opium, Steroids

Marx's characterizations of Religion as "opium" and "illusory happiness" are as experienced by sufferers in a society.  They, thus, do not include the ways that it informs the status of the overclass.  In a Theocracy, it is the explicit basis of Power.  In other systems, it can effectively reinforce a hierarchy by the thesis that such a social arrangement expresses a 'divine will', in any of several ways, e. g. a thesis of pre-determination, a theory that income distribution is determined by a superhuman force or by deservedness, etc.  In these cases, Religion enhances Power, suggesting that for some of the people, at least, the appropriate pharmaceutical metaphor for it is one with which Marx has no acquaintance--steroids.