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

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,

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

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.

"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.

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.