News Center Maine interviews Wahle about unconventional lobster sedation method
News Center Maine spoke with Richard Wahle, a professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences and director of UMaine’s Lobster Institute, about a Maine lobster shack owner who is experimenting with lobsters and THC, the main calming ingredient in marijuana. “In a world where use of marijuana is becoming more common and legal, and at the same time, people are looking for ways to make the transfer of lobsters from life to the boiling pot a little more gentle, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised here,” said Wahle, who began looking into the topic of lobsters and cannabis after hearing the news. He found a journal article on a study from 1988 about “the changes in neurotransmitters of the lobster when exposed to cannabinoids,” according to the report. “Lobsters do have gills and to the extent they are similar to the lung is that there’s a moist membrane there at the interface of the air and the body and so chemicals can be transmitted across that membrane,” Wahle said. “There may be more efficient ways to do that in a water medium but we’re sort of working at the fringe of science here with the respect to the activity of cannabinoids in lobsters.” Maine Public also spoke with Wahle about the topic.