# How Exactly Are Drugs Made From Petroleum? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2007, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808 "2007-07-23T04:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808/21 "2010-11-16T10:29:52Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > You are making a fundamental error in your reasoning. > > The “mirror image” cannot be an “exact chemical duplicate”. If it were an exact chemical duplicate, it wouldn’t be the mirror image, it would be the compound itself. > > Quote from Wikipedia, bolding mine. Some organic molecules exist in different isomers (mirror images), and it’s well known that the biological effects of one isomer may differ from the the biological effects of the other isomer. A competent chemist with the appropriate tools is perfectly able to distinguish analytically between two different isomers of the same compound. > > Another example is the molecule [vanillin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanillin). Vanillin can be synthesized from petroleum-based precursors or from the natural lignin in wood. Provided sufficient purity of the sample, no-one will be able to tell you where that vanillin came from. However, wood-based vanillin is more popular as a flavoring compound in foods, because it’s (irrationally) regarded as more “natural”, while petrochemical-based vanillin is preferred as a precursor for medical drugs, since it’s actually easier to produce in sufficient purity for the pharmaceutical industry > > Short version of the above: If the synthetic molecule is an **exact** chemical duplicate, no-one, neither Nature nor the analytical chemist will be able to tell whether the molecule is of “natural” or “synthetic” origin. Nice post to correct the cabbagery immediately above. Mirror image, such a loaded term 🙂 Minor nitpick - You can in fact discriminate between natural and synthetic molecules, through isotope distributions. This is done in the flavours and fragrance industry for things like jasmine. As you point out, the naturally sourced substance commands a premium in marketing terms. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808/22 "2010-11-16T11:16:47Z")
> [@elelle](#): > > OK, I hear you, but please elaborate on it. From what Solfy posted, many pharmaceuticals are derived from petroleum. Is that true, or are there other sources, and what are they? I’m just looking for simple answers/ Coal, natural gas, mines, for the smallest molecules which are then cooked into different molecules and these into different molecules and these… and then these mixed with other molecules, packaged and sent to the pharmacy; also, for items whose atoms don’t end up in the final product but which are necessary in between (mineral acids, catalysts, solvents… sulphuric acid is made from sulphur, which is an “undesirable but economically valuable residue” from refineries, so even though it’s a mineral acid and not an organic substance, it ends up coming from petroleum, gas or coal too; it is used in lots of organic reactions). Vegetal and animal sources, for other “lego blocks” which are more complicated than the ones extracted from oil, coal or natural gas. For example, one “inert” compound often found in pills is glucose, which is cheaper to get from vegetable sources than to cook from oil; the active ingredient (say, _o_-acetyl-salicylic acid) is more likely to have ultimately come from an oil well (and this from ancient trees) than to have been extracted from a plant (and I have purposefully chosen an active ingredient which can be extracted from plants, it just happens to be much more efficient to cook it, with modern technology). Note that this applies to pretty much anything around you. Plastics. Your clothing. I’m wearing panties which are mostly cotton (a fiber obtained from a plant) with a bit of spandex (a fiber cooked from petroleum), and the dyes could be made from petroleum, obtained from vegetal or animal sources, or a mixture of dyes from several origins. ETA: the isotope distribution thing was used at least once to detect wines to which alcohol synthesised from petroleum had been added. ---
**Author:** ![Slightly\_mad\_scientist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ba8739/32.png) [@Slightly\_mad\_scientist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slightly_mad_scientist)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808/23 "2010-11-16T11:34:53Z")
You can distinguish them in the laboratory, but the chemistry and biology of a natural and a synthesized compound are essentially indistinguishable. If your compounds behave differently in chemical or biological tests, then they are different compounds. Chemical compounds isolated from natural sources are also synthesized out of smaller building blocks. Nature is much better than we at synthesizing complex chemicals selectively, but the resulting compounds are the same as those synthesized in a lab. There is no mysterious property of natural compounds that makes them behave differenty that we don’t understand. I’m repeating the previous answers here, but this is a very important point: **The mirror image of a molecule (enantiomer) is a different molecule!** They behave differently biologically, chemically and even physically. You can distinguish them easily by observing how they rotate polarized light. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808/24 "2010-11-16T12:44:51Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Another example is the molecule [vanillin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanillin). Vanillin can be synthesized from petroleum-based precursors or from the natural lignin in wood. Provided sufficient purity of the sample, no-one will be able to tell you where that vanillin came from. However, wood-based vanillin is more popular as a flavoring compound in foods, because it’s (irrationally) regarded as more “natural”, while petrochemical-based vanillin is preferred as a precursor for medical drugs, since it’s actually easier to produce in sufficient purity for the pharmaceutical industry “Natural” vanilla extract is also not a pure solution of vanillin in ethanol/water. Many of the impurities have noticeable (and potentially desirable) flavors. Now I certainly can’t tell the difference, but I knew a guy who could double blind identify vanilla and cinnamon (mostly cinnamaldehyde). Likewise, the active ingredient in Marinol, while the major psychoactive component in cannabis (and not a different enantiomer or diasteriomer) is not the only psychoactive component, so we shouldn’t expect the effects to be identical (never mind that the delivery method is different as well). ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808/25 "2010-11-16T13:21:05Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Now I certainly can’t tell the difference, but I knew a guy who could double blind identify vanilla and cinnamon (mostly cinnamaldehyde). I wrote that wrong. He could identify different sources of vanilla and cinnamon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-exactly-are-drugs-made-from-petroleum/412808.md?page=1)