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

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

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.

Police said they are reconsidering how they keep evidence after multiple incidents where rats got into the evidence room to steal drugs.

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

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.

Rats infested the Houston Police Department's evidence room and broke into a package of mushrooms, possibly disrupting open drug-related cases.

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,

"Drug-addicted rats" are destroying drug evidence in Houston, potentially comprising 3,600 open drug-related cases