synthetic

Of, or relating to synthesis.

Produced by synthesis instead of being isolated from a natural source (but may be identical to a product so obtained).

As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.

Produced by synthesis, thought to have the same effect as its natural counterpart, but chemically different from it.

Artificial, not genuine.

Pertaining to the joining of bound morphemes in a word (compare analytic).

A synthetic compound.

Only plastics and synthetics that cannot be recycled will end up in landfills, he said.