The rodents are enjoying marijuana at the Houston Police Department that has been sitting in evidence for years.

"Drug-addicted rats" are eating narcotics seized and stored by Houston police, prompting a change in how long the department is required to store the evidence, officials said.

"We've got 400,000 lbs. of marijuana in storage, that the rats are the only ones enjoying it," said Houston Mayor John Whitmire.

The Houston Police Department says its methods for storing seized drugs have gone up in smoke after it was discovered that rats have been crawling through evidence lockers with a major case of the munchies and gobbling up the marijuana being stored in criminal cases.

To illustrate the problem, Houston police Chief J. Noe Diaz pointed to one piece of cocaine evidence from 1996 that was still in the lockup. The individual tied to the drugs pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and has since been released, he said.

Houston police were first made aware of rats dining in their evidence room in October, but professional exterminators had difficulties resolving the issue because of the rodents c

Houston we have a problem – rats have been dining out on everything from marijuana to psychedelic mushrooms in the city’s police evidence room. John Whitmire, the mayor of Houston, put it simply during a press conference: ‘We’ve got 400,

Rats have infiltrated a Narcotics Evidence Room in Houston, forcing the DA's office to alert attorneys on thousands of cases that evidence may be compromised.