Why do so many people think that natural pharmaceutical ingredients (taken from plants) are safer than artificial pharmaceutical ingredients?

Here’s one point of view: many people seem to be aware that it really depends on the pharmaceutical ingredient. It’s a complicated issue, but you must always be careful when you ingest anything, be it natural or synthetic, man-made. There are plenty of natural herbs, substances, etc. that will kill you. And there are plenty of substances that are purified or synthetic versions of natural substances that are much more dangerous and addictive than their natural counterparts. We have to research anything, whether it is a pharmaceutical or herbal or vitamin supplement, anything that you ingest, consume, swallow and so forth. It’s just common sense to understand what it is that you are ingesting. ‘Natural’ is most certainly not necessarily safer. Hemlock and mushrooms should make this clear. We should also keep in mind that many pharmaceuticals were derived from plants or at least originally discovered in them and then synthesized.