The first time a drug was created from a plant was back in 1803, when a German scientist isolated morphine from opium. Because of this ability to precisely measure what an active ingredient could do, a scientific craze began for isolating active ingredients from plants. Soon it was believed that isolating ingredients was always superior to messy, imprecise plant remedies. But it just isn t true that plants owe all of their actions to a single isolated ingredient within them. Every medicinal plant, in addition to its active ingredient, has dozens of other ingredients that buffer or temper the main ingredient, keeping it from being too harsh or overactive.
Drugs are generally far more toxic than their plant counterparts.
The ingredients are isolated and usually concentrated so that it takes far, far less of a drug to reach a level of overdose. In comparison, it usually takes extraordinarily high doses of most herbs to reach overdose. Because drugs are more concentrated, therre's less room for error. Compared to herbs, drugs produce their effects more rapidly, with greater intensity, and with shorter duration. A much smaller dose will create toxic side effects.