Lobsters at a restaurant in Maine are getting baked, not in the oven but with medical marijuana.

Charlotte Gill, the owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, Maine, has been experimenting with getting her lobsters stoned as a way to ease their distress, pain, and suffering.

Boston.com:

After reading about cannabinoid receptors in invertebrates, Gill and her staff took a leftover cardboard box from a vendor and filled it with an inch of water, then covered the box and inserted a straw. They put their first test subject, named Roscoe, into the box and blew marijuana smoke through the straw. The result? Roscoe became very, very chill, she said.

“There was no desire to pinch or grab,” Gill said, noting that in the subsequent three weeks after she moved him back to the tank with his lobster friends, Roscoe remained relaxed, and she observed the other lobsters in the tank “calm down.” (Roscoe was eventually released back into the ocean as an appreciation for his service in her experiment.)

Before serving them to customers, the restaurant is still experimenting with a process where the crustacean is steamed for six minutes, then cooking the body and tail under an additional 420 degrees. Gill’s 82-year-old father is the test subject, and so far he hasn’t tested positive for THC after consuming the body and tail. He still needs to be tested after eating the claws, which did not undergo additional cooking.

Gill is a licensed medical marijuana caregiver and hopes to start serving her hot-boxed lobsters to customers as soon as next week. Read the rest

One of Trump's border officials told Politico that the administration is planning to permanently bar Canadians who invest in or start legal cannabis businesses in the US or Canada from entering the USA. Read the rest

A 'worst idea video,' which a publicly traded CEO allowed to be published on the internet yesterday.

It turns into stoner car discussion instantly. Read the rest

My American friends: I regret to inform you that your dream of declaring ding as duty-free swag when crossing back from Canada into the United States is oh, so very stillborn.

From Newsweek:

U.S. customs and border agents are bracing for Canada’s legalization of recreational marijuana, saying they will continue to enforce federal law along the northern border.

“Although medical and recreational marijuana may be legal in some U.S. States and Canada, the sale, possession, production and distribution of marijuana all remain illegal under U.S. federal law,” Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials told Detroit’s Local 4 news.

The unidentified officials said that anyone attempting to enter the U.S. with cannabis may have the products seized, as well as face fines and possible “apprehension.”

Sorry.

That said, our rye whiskey, Hudson Bay blankets and maple syrup still love you and would be thrilled if you gave them a forever home, south of our border.

The ban holds true, even if you're a resident of border states like Vermont, Washington and as of October, Michigan, where toking, and otherwise buddying up with cannabis is fine and dandy. It's not just American citizens who have to watch their ass at the border, either. According to Newsweek, Canadians who admit to having used dope at any point in their lives could face a lifetime ban on entering the United States.

While I'm a whiskey sorta guy, I feel for anyone that has to put up with this nonsense.

Image via Wikipedia Commons Read the rest

There are nine US states with legal recreational marijuana; five on the west coast and four in the east. Read the rest

Back in 1977, middle class, white New Yorkers got frustrated over being criminalized for smoking weed, so they got the state legislature to decriminalized simple possession of weed -- merely having weed in your possession became a civil infraction and if you were caught, you might get a ticket, but that's it. Read the rest

The human mind is capable of such great creativity when the rewards are dank. Read the rest

US Sen. Elizabeth Warren announced today that she will hold a press conference Thursday on Capitol Hill to unveil a marijuana legalization bill she is co-sponsoring with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO). Read the rest

Oregon state economists Mark McMullen and Josh Lehner say that employers have told them that they can't fill vacancies because every qualified candidate fails their drug test, which is sometimes mandated by the companies' insurers. Read the rest

When Theresa May became the British Prime Minister, her pick for Home Office Undersecretary of State was Victoria Atkins, a former prosecutor who specialised in jailing drug users, and who was on record for her uncompromising, evidence-ignoring stance on any form of drugs legalisation. Read the rest

After three years of legal weed, Oregon has grown 1.1 million pounds, approximately three times what residents buy in a year. From The Guardian:

The result? Prices are dropping to unprecedented lows in auction houses and on dispensary counters across the state.

Wholesale sun-grown weed fell from $1,500 a pound last summer to as low as $700 by mid-October. On store shelves, that means the price of sun-grown flower has been sliced in half to those four-buck grams.

For Oregon customers, this is a bonanza. A gram of the beloved Girl Scout Cookies strain now sells for little more than two boxes of actual Girl Scout cookies.

But it has left growers and sellers with a high-cost product that’s a financial loser. And a new feeling has descended on the once-confident Oregon cannabis industry: panic.

“The business has been up and down and up and down,” says Don Morse, who closed his Human Collective II dispensary in south-west Portland four months ago. “But in a lot of ways it has just been down and down for dispensaries.”

"How do you move mountains of unwanted weed?" (The Guardian via Next Draft) Read the rest

When I read Macon County, IL K-9 trainer Chad Larner's claim that marijuana legalization would necessitate euthanizing 275 Illinois drug-sniffer dogs that couldn't be retrained and who would be driven mad by the pervasive smell of legal weed, I thought, "Gosh, I hope some cops from a legal weed state like Colorado show up to explain that this guy is full of shit." Read the rest

I got a contact high just from watching these people who are high as fuck being interviewed on TV. Read the rest

President Donald Trump endorses letting states decide how to regulate marijuana, White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said today. Read the rest

When John Boehner was Speaker of the House, he described himself as "unalterably opposed" to marijuana legalization, a posture that contributed to the criminalization, imprisonment and ruination of millions of Americans. Read the rest

John Boehner's eyes will be bleary, liquid and reddened for another reason, henceforth: he's got a job as a marijuana industry spokesman.

I’m joining the board of #AcreageHoldings because my thinking on cannabis has evolved. I’m convinced de-scheduling the drug is needed so we can do research, help our veterans, and reverse the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities.

I'm certainly looking forward to high John Boehner tweets, but let's not forget that he and his party spent decades using drug policy to marginalize, incarcerate and politically neuter minorities. He's woke for money, not justice. Read the rest

This dad finds his son's weed, presumably while doing the laundry, and flushes it down the toilet. Reacting to a child's "wrongdoing" by posting the repercussions online isn't new, but it's such a strange strategy that some parents use to either teach or punish their child (not sure which).

"He's making Daddy problems right now. Don't let me find your shit in my house, or this is going to happen," the dad says. I guess the boy should just carry his weed on his person at all times, which could get him in a lot more trouble.

The hilarious part is that after the dad flushes, a chunk of weed pops back up. The dad is persistent, flushing again and again, but that little green ball of herb is just as persistent – symbolic, perhaps, of how well this dad's video is going to be received by his son. Read the rest