‘Drug-Addicted Rats’ Reportedly ‘Enjoying’ Marijuana After Invading Texas Evidence Room

The district attorney’s office in Harris County, Texas, has alerted attorneys involved in thousands of drug-related cases that rats were found eating the narcotics seized and stored by Houston police for decades, city officials announced at a press conference last week.

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’ constant drug use, Peter Stout, the president of the Houston Forensic Science Center, told reporters at the press conference.

“I mean, think about it. They’re drug-addicted rats. They’re tough to deal with,” Stout said.

The storage room contained large amounts of drugs collected over decades, officials said, including cocaine evidence from 1996 and marijuana from 1993. Those cases were finalized, and the evidence no longer has value.

“We got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage,” Houston Mayor John Whitmire said at the press conference. “The rats are the only ones enjoying it.”

In addition to cocaine and marijuana, the rats have also feasted on packaging containing mushrooms, Joshua Reiss, general counsel at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, told CBS affiliate KHOU.

The district attorney’s office has notified attorneys in more than 3,600 open drug-related cases out of an abundance of caution, but only one active case has been affected, according to the outlet.

City officials told reporters last week they will take new measures allowing police officials to destroy narcotic evidence seized before 2015, along with any evidence in cases where both sides have agreed to a plea and to destroy the evidence.

“This is a problem for property rooms everywhere in the country,” Stout said. “Rodents, bugs, fungus, all kinds of things love drugs.”