Shakespeare was Probably a Pothead, Says Science

Surprise, surprise, a guy who wrote 37 plays in iambic pentameter was probably into pot. Way to spend your research money on nothing, South African researchers.

The study was set to look at what people were smoking back in the day in England, taking pipes from Shakespeare’s garden to run gas chromatography mass spectrometry, which is a very fancy pants, science way of saying they found cannabis on four separate pipes from his garden. Other non-Shakespearean pipes used in the study revealed tobacco, marijuana and cocaine. Proving that even a culture that stops for a daily tea can want to be raging out of their minds while sipping on some Earl Grey and munching on some cucumber sandwiches.

Does anyone else find it surprising there was no coke on Shakespeare’s pipes? Like duh, he was an artist, he liked to chill out but, additionally, in one of his plays he has a girl stab herself rather than die without her teenage love of a couple of days. That is not the relaxed reaction you’d expect to get from a pot smoker, that’s the kind of coked out thing you’d expect from someone sniffing every 7 seconds. I need more answers, Science!

(H/T Death and Taxes)