The Mikado
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« on: August 15, 2015, 04:08:19 PM » |
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While cannabis was an Old World plant, smoking was a New World invention first applied to tobacco and then attempted with other substances. Smoking was only beginning to catch on in England towards the tail end of Shakespeare's life (Shakespeare lived until 1616 and smoking began to become something people did in England in the early 17th century). If he did consume cannabis, it would have been more likely that he would have eaten it than smoked it.
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed back around 500 BC (and of course we can't take everything he wrote at face value) that the Scythians (who lived basically in what's now Ukraine) would gather in tents and throw cannabis on a fire inside of the tent and breathe the fumes, so it is an ancient practice indeed even within Europe.
EDIT: We also can't rule out the most likely scenario regarding the pipes found: that sometime between Shakespeare's time and now some historians/archeologists got high with Shakespeare's old pipes.
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