State inspectors are investigating a Southwest Harbor restaurant for using marijuana to try to sedate lobsters before cooking them.

The Maine Health Inspection Program is investigating Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound but it hasn’t issued any findings yet, said Emily Spencer, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees the program. She would not say if the agency had asked the owner, Charlotte Gill, to stop the practice during the investigation.

On Friday, Gill said her infamous “smoked” lobster meat isn’t available to customers right now, but she is confident the restaurant, which she has started calling the official home of the “high-end lobster,” soon will be able to offer cannabis-sedated lobster to informed customers without violating Maine state laws or codes.

Full story here.

There are two big things that popped into my mind when reading this story, and they’re not mutually exclusive in any way. First of all, this is the most stoner solution to humanely killing lobsters of ALL TIME. To be fair, I’d argue that anytime anybody thinks that the way to fix something is by getting it high would be the stoner solution. However, what puts this over the edge is that there’s just enough backyard science to make it seem like it might work. That’s why it’s not an idiot solution, it’s a stoner solution. It’s not only “Oh we’ll hotbox the lobsters,” it’s also, “oh we’ll put THC oil in the water that the lobsters soak in and then heat it to a temperature where the oil breaks down,” and that’s not something you think up when you’re dumb; it’s something you think up when you’re high as balls.

There’s also the fact that this solution contains extensive knowledge about weed but absolutely no knowledge of lobsters. We’ve got these restauranteurs thinking they’ve turn the lobsters into stoned hippie pacifists because they no longer use their claws as weapons; when the reality is that they never use their claws as weapons, so they could just be paralyzed. That being said, I actually care less about this because frankly if a lobster pinches me with it’s claws, then regardless of intention, it’s a fucking weapon. 

Next we’ve got the state of Maine arguing against this. I don’t know if I’d take issue with this if they’d worded their response differently. I’d completely understand if the state wanted to test whether or not there was any weed juice left in the lobster when it was consumed by the customer: disclaimer, that may be what they’re testing. But then there’s this schmuck who goes off and says: “Medical marijuana may only be grown for and provided to persons with a marijuana recommendation from a qualified medical provider,” he said. “Lobsters are not people.”

Frankly, this argument encompasses much of the problem with marijuana policies in the U.S.: placing more emphasis on the wording of the law than its function and purpose. What I mean by this is who the hell cares if a lobster gets high? Who cares? This is such an imbecile quote! Just say you don’t want people to get high from eating lobsters, because that’s the problem! Just say that! Don’t go claiming that the issue here is that a licensed medical hot boxer is giving weed to lobsters instead of people who need it, because it’s not! “Oh I mean if this weed was going to cancer patients that’d be one thing, but the fact that it’s going to perfectly healthy lobsters is a damn travesty and a complete aberration of the law.” This is so stupid. It’s 11PM on a Tuesday and I’m ready to go on a rant against the entire state of Maine. I’m trying to limit myself to one New England rant a week, so unfortunately I will go into my “nice corner”, calm down, and save throwing on my waterproof loggers and sabotaging the entire infrastructure of the Pine Tree State into oblivion for another time.

From my limited experience with completely legal marijuana use this seems like a win-win: either the lobsters gets blazed as all hell and dies thinking he (or she!) is in a sauna, or he (or she!) is terrified as all fuck, thinks they’re an alien creature in a land of giants, and begs for death in any way they can get it. Win-win.