Was William Shakespeare a Pot Head?

[angus]

(assuming pot originated in the New World).

I thought that the ganja was from India.  (I see that Ernest beat me to it.)

Anyway, Shakespeare died in 1616, and at that time the English weren't yet sending soldiers and thieves to the East.  When they finally got around to it, it wasn't ganja, but poppies that they really liked.  Well, that and tea.  

Then again, very few compounds have the same retention times and ion products as THC in a GC/MS experiment.  The only one that I can think of off the top of my head is a canabinoid called dronabinol, and it also comes from the herb, so who knows?  Maybe the bard was toking it up in his dugout.

[angus]

While cannabis was an Old World plant, smoking was a New World invention first applied to tobacco...

We also can't rule out ...that sometime between Shakespeare's time and now some historians/archeologists got high with Shakespeare's old pipes.

No doubt, drinking was the word they used, both in the Virginia Colony and in England.  At least as it applied to tobacco.  One drank the tobacco smoke.  I'd assume that they drank the ganja as well.

And, yeah it's true, if I found one of Shakespeare's old pipes, the first thing I'd do would be to break it in with some fine Columbian.  Good call.