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Charlotte Gill of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound has a new way to cook lobster aimed at easing their pain, she told local media.(Photo: iStock / BDphoto)

A Maine restaurant has a theory on how to ease lobster pain: Smoke them out then steam them up.

Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, is experimenting with dosing lobsters with marijuana to sedate the crustaceans and relieve their pain during the otherwise agonizing cooking process, she told local media.

“I feel bad that when lobsters come here there is no exit strategy,” Owner Charlotte Gill told the Mount Desert Islander. So Gill hatched a plan and tested it with a lobster named Roscoe.

In a covered box with two inches of water, the lobster was placed as marijuana smoke was pumped in, Gill told the newspaper. To understand how the tokes affected Roscoe, Gill observed his behavior, rather than cooking him up, and took his claw bands off for nearly three weeks.

The result? Roscoe mellowed out. Gill told TODAY he seemed more calm and didn’t use his claws as a weapon. In fact, the other lobsters appeared more at ease, too.

While Roscoe was released back into the ocean, Gill plans to serve up “high” lobsters at customers’ request. She told the Mount Desert Islander she hopes all lobsters she serves next season will be sedated first.

“We put the pot in lobster pot,” Gill told TODAY 

And this isn’t some half-backed idea, either:Gill told the paper she has taken precaution not to accidentally get diners high.

“In order to alleviate any and all concern about residual effect, as we will be dealing with the chemical compound THC, we will use a different method,” Gill told Mount Desert Islander.

“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 420 degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carryover effect (even though the likelihood of such would be literally impossible).”

For many Americans, marijuana has become a way to relieve pain, improve their appetite and ease the side effects of chemotherapy. Gill has a medical marijuana caregiver license in Maine, the Mount Desert Islander reported.

Earlier this year, Switzerland banned the practice of boiling lobsters alive due to the pain lobsters can feel in the process.

More: Switzerland makes it illegal to boil a lobster

“Studies show that lobsters, like other animals, experience pain and distress,” Stefan Kunfermann, a spokesman for the Federal Office of Food Safety and Veterinary Affairs, told USA TODAY earlier this year.

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was less than buzzed about the idea, though. 

“It is highly unlikely that getting a lobster high would make a lick of difference when it comes to the full-blown agony of being boiled or steamed alive. There is a well-established, foolproof way to prevent crustaceans from suffering, though, and that’s by not eating them,” a PETA spokesperson told TODAY. 

Related: PETA billboard aims to convince crab-loving Maryland to stop eating the crustaceans

Contributing: Helena Bachmann and Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY

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