Scientists say William Shakespeare may have been a 'Bard boy' who took drugs to dream up his dramas.
Their claim comes after smoking pipes found buried in his back garden revealed traces of cannabis.
The scientists have submitted a formal application to the Church of England for exhumation of William Shakespeare's remains so that they can find out about his life and death, and if he smoked weed.
The team led by Francis Thackeray, an anthropologist and director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa hopes to dig up the bard's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon.
"We have incredible techniques. We don't intend to move the remains at all," Thackeray was quoted as saying about the "non-destructive analysis" the team has planned.
The team also looks to address a controversial suggestion Thackeray made a decade ago, when he
examined a collection of two dozen pipes found in the playwright's garden and determined that Shakespeare was an avid marijuana smoker.
