The point I was trying to make is that a "drug" is typically highly purified and a standardized single component, or at most a mix of highly purified components. Herbs, as medicine, are complex and variable.
Even with highly debased street drugs they're missing the additional herbal components.
Is it tho? It's not uncommon to mix weed with herbs, it's called a spliff. Ayahuasca is a combination of substances, would you not consider modern ayahuasca consumption as a drug? Mushrooms are often mixed with lemon juice.
Plus what's the point of making the distinction? And you mentioned that people in the past wouldn't snort drugs, and that's false, there's native tribes that would make powder out of seeds and snort them.
"Weed" is an "herb". The "drugs" in weed are THC and the cannabinols/oids.
> would you not consider modern ayahuasca consumption as a drug
From the context of what I wrote, obviously not. In colloquial usage, I would call it a drug, but I was obviously making a distinction here.
> Plus what's the point of making the distinction?
The context and particularities of what I was saying is the point!!!!!!!!!!
Herbs do not naturally standardize their active compounds. These compounds are subject to variable expression based on the genetics, environmental conditions in which they are grown, and time of harvest. Purified drugs, and even some herb-based supplements, are standardized. Even when they're being debased on the street, they're being debased in the batch in a standard manner (assuming they were well mixed, of course).
> and that's false, there's native tribes that would make powder out of seeds and snort them.
Thanks for letting me know. I don't see that this fact detracts from the larger point I'm making. Please stop nitpicking and try to see the larger point I was trying to make. I'm not trying to have an argument here, I'm trying to have a discussion.
So you're basically conflating "drug" = "molecule".
I see the point better now, but I still think the distinction is misguided. In a clinical context, dosage is more accurate, that's true, but this is not a distinction to be made between "pure molecule" and "herbs" in any other context.
For example if you use a scale for mushrooms, which under this idionsycratic distinction would be more of a "herb" than a "drug" (the drug counterpart being the psilocybin molecule), then dosage would likely be more accurate than a tab of LSD, because you really have no way of knowing how much LSD is in there.
In other words yes, the natural variance and additional components within "natural" drugs exists, but it is not inherent that this variance is significantly more than that of what you can get with synthetic drugs, specially if you consider that there's likely less hands between a person growing a plant/mushroom, and a chemist making something fairly difficult such as LSD.
This is not nitpicking, rather elaborating on the context, and trying to illustrate that the distinction you are making is only really applicable to comparing a clinical to a non-clinical setting, and it's not something inherent to the origin of the molecules.
Even with highly debased street drugs they're missing the additional herbal components.