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

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.

"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.

Rats with a hankering for illicit drugs are treating a police evidence room like an all-you-can-eat buffet.Houston Mayor John Whitmire last week joined the city's police chief and Harris County district attorney to announce a new effort to clear out old evidence from the city's police department.

A rat colony in a downtown Houston police property room has compromised a bag of mushrooms intended as evidence against two defendants.

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

HPD and the Harris County District Attorney's office is changing how evidence is stored after a 'drug-addicted rat' problem caused them to revaluate there evidence property room.

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.