Restaurateur gets lobsters stoned before killing them
Cannabis could be a kinder exit strategy for crustaceans doomed to the dinner plate.
The next time you go to dinner at a fancy restaurant you might spot a chilled-out lobster hanging out in the seafood tank.
While most of us would like to believe lobsters don't feel pain when we boil them alive for dinner, one restaurateur wants to find a more peaceful end for the tasty crustaceans.
Maine-based seafood restaurant Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor is experimenting with cannabis to sedate lobsters before they're killed. Restaurant owner Charlotte Gill placed a test lobster she named Roscoe into a covered box with water at the bottom. She then had marijuana smoke blown into the box for Roscoe to inhale.
Later, Gill removed the bands on Roscoe's claws, and the lobster was allowed to roam free in the tank for nearly three weeks without any incidents of aggression.
"The reason for keeping it so long, I wanted to make sure there were no adverse affects," Gill told the Portland Press Herald.
As a thank you to the lobster for participating in her experiment, Gill returned Roscoe to the sea.
While pot sounds like a friendly way to de-stress lobsters before they're killed, not everyone believes the creatures need to be given such special treatment.
"When you put them in boiling water, the primitive nervous system that does exist is destroyed so quickly they're unlikely to feel anything at all," Robert Bayer, executive director of the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine, told the Portland Press.
Though Gill is experimenting with the idea of selling lobsters relaxed by pot, she does emphasize that the creatures are not considered cannabis edibles.
"THC breaks down completely by 392 degrees, therefore we will use both steam as well as a heat process that will expose the meat to a 420-degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carryover effect," Gill said.
Here's hoping lobsters everywhere get one last toke before they hit our dinner plates.
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