Scientists at the University of California conducted a study to get lobsters high on marijuana. Why, you might ask? Apparently, they were inspired by a restaurant owner in Maine who said she gets the creatures stoned before boiling them alive. How considerate of her. If I were about to be boiled alive, I’d want to get blasted out of my mind as well.

Charlotte Gill of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound says it makes a “dramatic difference” when she placed lobsters inside a sealed chamber and then pumped in marijuana smoke, saying they were more relaxed going into the pot. This results in meat that is “sweeter and lighter, because it doesn’t have the same stress hormone.”

Never ones to pass up the opportunity to get some sort of critter high, University of California alumni decided to test this hypothesis. So they set up their own little Bob Marley chamber and discovered that stoned lobsters did indeed act extremely relaxed. Hooray for your tax dollars at work! I’m not sure we needed a lobster study to confirm the psychoactive effects of marijuana, but there you go. Now we have it, and now you know: If you want your lobster to taste better, throw them a little party before you toss them into a pot.

Mice on meth, stoned lobsters, fish on crack…I’m starting to see a pattern here. Me thinks the undergrads at University science departments might be looking for ways to mix work with recreation.

!. The Week, July 2, 2021, p. 12