But what I'm getting at is that because THC is an umbrella term for several isomers, when TurkeyOnRye says that Marinol (one isomer of THC) isn't as effective as the THC in marijuana (a mixture of several isomers), it's entirely possible that he's correct, because different isomers can react in different ways.
I agree but they did't say they are the same, people just seem to think because they come under the same umbrella term they are the same.
Yeah, it bugs me when people interpret "natural" as "necessarily better", but what I was getting at is that oftentimes, a synthetic version of some substance isn't actually identical to the natural version. Sometimes, when a synthetic and a natural version of some substance are called "the same", it really only means something like "members of the same class of chemicals" or "functionally equivalent for the intended purpose".
True but that is more a marketing ploy playing on people lack of knowledge.