A restaurant in Maine is trying to get lobsters high before cooking them alive

Welp, it looks like a restaurant in Maine is trying to get lobsters high before cooking them.

The owner of Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound restaurant, Charlotte Gill, recently revealed the restaurant has attempted to get their lobsters stoned in an effort to make their deaths at her eatery more humane, according to the Mount Desert Islander.

“The animal is already going to be killed,” Gill told the Islander. “It is far more humane to make it a kinder passage.”

Gill concocted a, uh, interesting method of getting her lobsters high. Here's an excerpt from the Islander that details her first attempt at smoking up a crustacean — a lobster she calls Roscoe:

In an experiment to test the affect of cannabis on lobsters, 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.

Roscoe was later returned to the ocean "as a thank you for being the experimental crustacean."

Though Gill, a licensed marijuana caregiver, told the Islander that Roscoe seemed more relaxed after his tank had been "infused: with cannabis smoke, it unclear that the lobster actually got stoned.

THC, the compound in cannabis responsible for getting you high is fat-soluble, not water-soluble, according to the Cannabist. This means it binds to fats not water, making it unlikely that the marijuana-infused water had any effect on Roscoe. This is why drinking bong water won't get you stoned.

Considering lobsters can remove oxygen (and probably weed smoke) with their gills from the air, it's possible they can get high from the smoke in the tank, but it's unclear whether or not lobsters even have cannabinoid receptors.

Gill has set up special tanks dedicated to "sedating" lobsters before their prepared for her customers, but only upon their request. And Gill has made it clear that the lobsters aren't going to get her diners stoned — but she does insist that the lobsters who've been exposed to a little THC are tastier.

While the most humane way to cook lobsters has been a popular debate recently, Gill reportedly steams them alive after hotboxing them. Others insist on killing them with a knife before cooking.

UPDATE: Sept. 24, 2018, 11:36 a.m. PDT

Unfortunately, after news of Gill’s lobster “sedating” methods began to circulate online, the Maine Health Inspection Program decided to investigate the restaurant’s unorthodox practices, temporarily barring the sale of weeded-up lobsters, the Portland Press-Herald reported on Friday. Though "non-smoked" are still available for purchase.

“After being contacted by the state, and upon reviewing its present laws and codes applicable to this arena, and then making a few minor adjustments to our procedure, we are completely confident that we will be able to proceed as planned,” Gill told the Herald. “Keep in mind this meat is presently not available, and we don’t expect it to be for a little while longer under the circumstances. … Soon though.”

Gill told the Herald that she expects to have her weed tranquilized lobsters back on the menu come October.