Fisherman’s Lobsters Get Cannabis Before Getting Cooked
[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap] Maine-based company, Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, has a unique way to humanely sedate lobsters before they are cooked—with cannabis.
Charlotte Gill owns the company and wanted to formulate a way to make the lobsters’ death less painful as they are being boiled alive. As a registered medical cannabis caregiver in Maine, Gill knew exactly what to do to ease the creatures’ pain. Gill places the lobsters in a box filled with two inches of water, then hotboxes the box with cannabis smoke, forcing the lobsters to inhale. But don’t expect to eat cannabis-infused lobster tail, because the THC is cooked and broken down in the process.
“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 told the Portland Press Herald.
According to the current reasoning, lobster’s nervous system is fairly rudimentary and the nervous system is destroyed soon after they are dropped into boiling water. Gill, being an animal lover and activist, wasn’t convinced that the lobsters don’t suffer.
The lobster meat won’t have any active cannabis. “I’m not selling an edible,” added Gill. “The animal is already going to be killed. It is far more humane to make it a kinder passage.”
Nearly 20 years ago, scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse determined that various laboratory animals self-administer cannabis after receiving doses. Furthermore, scientists from New Zealand determined that some invertebrates (including crustaceans) have cannabinoid receptors. Although some insects cannot process THC, lobsters may indeed feel the effects of cannabis.
Gill claims that the lobster’s claw away less when they are on cannabis before being boiled alive. Across the globe, Switzerland, New Zealand and a town in Italy have already banned boiling live lobsters, due to studies that suggest they feel pain in boiling water.
