Shakespeare’s final resting place in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. CREDIT: David Jones, Flickr

A South African anthropologist has asked permission to open the graves of William Shakespeare and his family to determine, among other things, what killed the Bard and whether his poems and plays may have been composed under the influence of marijuana.

But while Shakespeare’s skeleton could reveal clues about his health and death, the question of the man’s drug use depends on the presence of hair, fingernails or toenails in the grave, said Francis Thackeray, the director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, who floated the proposal to the Church of England.

Thackeray conducted a study in 2001, which found evidence of marijuana residueon pipe fragments found in Shakespeare’s garden.

to read more, go to:   http://www.livescience.com/14797-shakespeare-bones-smoked-pot.html