Houston police are grappling with overcrowded evidence lockers filled with contraband, including marijuana and bicycles, and are addressing pest infestations from rats. Mayor John Whitmire announced plans to discard 1.2 million items, especially narcotics stored since before 2015 that have no investigational value. Experts caution disposing of old evidence might hinder future investigations due to advancing forensic technology, while infesting rats threaten stored evidence. Police leadership acknowledges the high costs involved in environmentally-responsible destruction of drugs, signaling the complexity of managing evidence responsibly.
We got 400,000 pounds of marijuana in storage that the rats are the only ones enjoying.
They're edible, they're tasty, they're all kinds of things. You can't store large quantities of drugs without expecting some of these things to happen.
So much evidence is kept and stored that is no longer needed, that has no impact on the resolution of that charge.
Burning old drugs could incur costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it must be done in accordance with environmental guidelines.
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