SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine — The owner of a Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound is serving baked lobster, that is, lobster sedated with marijuana, according to the Portland Press Herald.
Charlotte Gill began sedating the lobsters with marijuana as an experiment to see if they were calmer once they were exposed to the drug. She sedated a lobster named Roscoe and found that he was indeed more calm once he was sedated with marijuana.
Gill sedated Roscoe by placing him in a box with a little water at the bottom and blew smoke into the box. Gill also noted that Roscoe's calm vibe seemed to affect the other lobsters when he was placed back into the lobster tank and said that Roscoe was relaxed for nearly three weeks.
Roscoe's Chicken and Lobster?
The restaurant owner has a medical marijuana caregiver license and believes that getting lobsters high before boiling them is more humane. She says that she wants to build bigger tanks so that the lobsters can be sedated simultaneously. "This world has enough pain and suffering as it is. It's time to make it a better place and I'm going to do my part, by starting here with this one thing," said Gill of the baked lobster idea.
There has been minimal research indicating that lobsters may feel the effects of marijuana because they are equipped with a nervous system, but the research is limited and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) doesn't agree that sedation with weed helps the doomed lobsters.
Gill claims that a less terrified-boiled lobster produces better tasting meat, but the animal rights advocacy organization says that getting lobsters high prior to boiling them is not likely to make them more comfortable while burned to death. They called being boiled alive "full-blown agony."
New Zealand and Switzerland agree with PETA and prohibited boiling lobsters while they are still alive and banned keeping lobsters on ice for transport while living. The countries outlawed the torturous practices after researchers advised that lobsters feel pain due to having an advanced nervous system.
Gill released Roscoe back into the ocean for participating in her marijuana experiment, but she has been serving baked lobster ever since. She says that the temperature at which she cooks the baked lobsters breaks down the THC and ensures that people eating the baked lobster will not feel its effects.
