William Shakespeare an Addict? Cannabis Traces Found in Pipe, Researchers Say

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Famed English poet, playwright and actor, William Shakespeare, may have been a marijuana user after researchers found traces of cannabis in the fragments of his pipe.

South African scientists used forensic technology to analyze the substances that were smoked in the tobacco pipes of William Shakespeare. According to the report by the Independent, 400-year old pipe bowls and stems that were dug up from the legendary playwright's garden were analyzed using a forensic technique called gas chromatography mass spectrometry.

The sophisticated forensic analysis allowed the researchers to detect residues of the substances used in the clay pipes despite the passing of several hundred years.

According to the Telegraph, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust dug up 24 17th century clay pipe fragments and loaned it to the University of the Witwatersrand scientists to be analyzed. The group found in the pipe fragments gathered from the Shakespeare's house four contained traces of cannabis and two contained traces of coca leaves.

According to Francis Thackeray from Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, cannabis and coca plants were considered to be "tobacco" during the playwright's era, reports Daily Mail. The marijuana plant was considered to be known during the Elizabethan era, while the coca plant from South America was introduced by the explorers of the New World such as Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh.

According to a report by Reuters, Thackeray said Shakespeare may have been a drug user who preferred cannabis and may have been "high" while writing his poems and plays even though the recent evidence does not prove it.

"Shakespeare may have been aware of the deleterious effects of cocaine as a strange compound. Possibly, he preferred cannabis as a weed with mind-stimulating properties," Thackeray told the Independent. Thackeray, however, did not mention how often Shakespeare may have smoked weed.

Thackeray said Shakespeare's marijuana use may have appeared in one of his works.

"Why write I still all one, ever the same / And keep invention in a noted weed," Shakespeare wrote in his work Sonnet 76.

In another report by the Telegraph, Thackeray has been calling for Shakespeare's remains to be exhumed in order to further study the lifestyle and habits of the Bard of Avon.

The examination of Shakespeare's grave would involve looking into the playwright's bones similar to how the skeleton of Richard III was examined. Thackeray believes that the bones could give more information.

However, an epitaph on Shakespeare's grave suggested that the famed poet had a fear of exhumation burial, and mistreatment of corpses.

"Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare/ To digg the dust encloased heare/ Bleste be the man that spares thes stones/ And curst be he that moves my bones," Shakespeare's tomb inscription read.