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Maine Restaurant Sedates Lobsters With Marijuana Before Cooking Them

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SOUTHWEST HARBOR, Maine (CBS Local) – A Maine restaurant is using marijuana to give lobsters a high before they're cooked.

Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlotte's Legendary Lobster Pound, tells The Mount Desert Islander she has been sedating lobsters with cannabis before they are steamed, if the customer requests it. She hopes to soon sedate all lobsters before cooking them.

"If we're going to take a life we have a responsibility to do it as humanely as possible," she tells the website.

She sedated her first lobster "Roscoe" by placing him in a covered box with some water at the bottom, and then blew marijuana smoke into the water. She told The Islander that Roscoe became calmer, not using his claws as weapons against other lobsters. He was released into the ocean as a reward for being the first in the experiment.

Gill, who has a medical marijuana caregiver license, believes lobster meat tastes better if the animal is less stressed before dying.

"The difference it makes within the meat itself is unbelievable," she told the website. "Everything you put into your body is energy."

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