You don't have to trust the government, you just have to trust the scientists who developed the drug or gene therapy. They are the ones who would be responsible for the drug working as advertised and having negligible side-effects.
But yes, I sympathize with you, I'm just like that myself actually. Some people wouldn't be able to appreciate the usefulness of the drug, no matter how hard you tried to explain to them that it's safe, helpful and actually globally risk-alleviating. Those who were memetically sealed off to believing that or just weren't capable of grasping it, would oppose it strongly - possiby enough to base a war on the rest of the world on it.
It would also take time to reach the whole population with a governmentally mandated treatment. There isn't even a world government right now. We are weak and slow. And one comparatively insane man on the run is one too many.
Assuming an efficient treatment for human stupidity could be developed (and assuming that would be a rational solution to our predicament), then the right thing to do would be delivering it in the manner causing the least bit of social upheaval and opposition. That would be a covert dispersal, most definitely. A globally coordinated release of a weaponized retro virus, for example.
We still have some time before even that can be accomplished, though. And once that tech gets here we have the hugely increasing risk of bioterrorism or just accidental catastrophies by the hand of some clumsy research assistant, before we have a chance to even properly prototype & test our perfect smart drug.
If I was convinced of the safety and efficacy of an intelligent enhancing treatment I would be inclined to take it and use my enhanced intelligence to combat any government attempts to mandate such treatment.
In this video, Julian Savulescu from the Uehiro centre for Practical Ethics argues that human beings are "Unfit for the future" - that radical technological advance, liberal democracy and human nature will combine to make the 21st century the century of global catastropes, perpetrated by terrorists and psychopaths, with tools such as engineered viruses. He goes on to argue that enhanced intelligence and a reduced urge to violence and defection in large commons problems could be achieved using science, and may be a way out for humanity.
Skip to 1:30 to avoid the tedious introduction
Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction - PART 1 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.
Genetically enhance humanity or face extinction - PART 2 from Ethics of the New Biosciences on Vimeo.
Well, I have already said something rather like this. Perhaps this really is a good idea, more important, even, than coding a friendly AI? AI timelines where super-smart AI doesn't get invented until 2060+ would leave enough room for human intelligence enhancement to happen and have an effect. When I collected some SIAI volunteers' opinions on this, most thought that there was a very significant chance that super-smart AI will arrive sooner than that, though.
A large portion of the video consists of pointing out the very strong scientific case that our behavior is a result of the way our brains are structured, and that this means that changes in our behavior are the result of changes in the way our brains are wired.