Around New England

Killing Stoned Lobsters More Humane, and They Taste Better, Too, Says Weed-Growing Restaurateur

September 20, 2018

A lobster restaurant owner in Maine is using marijuana smoke to make the deaths of her entrees more humane.

“I feel bad that when lobsters come here there is no exit strategy,” said Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, according to the Mount Desert Islander. “It’s a unique place and you get to do such unique things but at the expense of this little creature. I’ve really been trying to figure out how to make it better.”

Gill, who has a medical marijuana caregiver license from the state and grows her own marijuana, tried out her new method on a lobster she called Roscoe.

According to the Mount Desert Islander, “… Roscoe the lobster was placed for a few minutes in a covered box with about two inches of water at the bottom. Marijuana smoke was then blown into the water at the bottom of the box.”

Lobsters are known for aggressive behavior — the main reason claw bands are put on them in lobster tanks is so they don’t kill each other.

But after Roscoe got his medical marijuana treatment, the claw bands were taken off and he was put back into the tank with the other lobsters for about three weeks. He never attacked anyone during that time, and his calmer mood seemed to affect the other lobsters, according to Gill.

In gratitude, Gill set Roscoe free in the ocean after the three-week experiment ended.

Gill’s restaurant, which is in the town of Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island, not far from Bar Harbor, is still boiling and steaming lobsters in the traditional ways. But she’s hoping customers next year will choose to have their lobsters sedated before being cooked.

She says the stoned lobsters will not amount to an edible marijuana product, because the active chemical compound n marijuana, THC, breaks down at 392 degrees Fahrenheit, while the lobsters will be heated to 420 degrees.

Customers will notice a difference in taste, though, because of the less tense way the lobsters died. 

“The difference it makes within the meat itself is unbelievable,” Gill told the Mount Desert Islander. “Everything you put into your body is energy.”