State health inspectors are investigating a Maine restaurant that tried to mellow out lobsters with marijuana before killing them to be served, cracked and eaten.

The Portland Press Herald reported that Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor remains open but has stopped allowing customers to request meat from lobsters sedated with marijuana.

Owner Charlotte Gill is a state-licensed medical marijuana caregiver. She said on Friday she hoped to resume sales of “smoked” lobster meat by mid-October, a move meant to lessen the suffering of her lobsters before they are dropped in boiling water.

It is unknown whether pot smoke calms lobsters or has any effect on their meat.

A Maine Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, Emily Spencer, would not say if the state had asked Gill to halt such sales.

But Gill told the Press Herald that “after being contacted by the state, and upon reviewing its present laws and codes applicable to this arena, and then making a few minor adjustments to our procedure, we are completely confident that we will be able to proceed as planned”.

“I imagine we will still have a pushback from the state on our hands,” she said, “but we are confident that we will be able to field any issues they may have with us, and do it with grace.

“These are important issues and ones that can also benefit not only the lobster, but the industry as well. Truly we are not trying to go against [the state’s] wishes and would love to work with them in order for us all to make this world a kinder place.”

Spencer said it would be up to the Maine Medical Marijuana Program to determine if Gill was using cannabis appropriately. A program spokesman, David Heidrich, told the newspaper he could not confirm if it was investigating the lobster restaurant.

But he added: “Medical marijuana may only be grown for and provided to persons with a marijuana recommendation from a qualified medical provider. Lobsters are not people.”