New Orleans police say rats ate marijuana confiscated by the department as part of the war on drugs:
The year is 1284. The city: Hamelin. Our hero? The Pied Piper, summoned (in that fabulous multicolored robe, no less) by a weary mayor to play his dulcet tones and lure the city rats, who were eating grass seized by the police.
OH. Um, no. 13th century mice were simply annoying. They are the mice of Today who allegedly feast on cannabis seized by the police in dreamland. Ah, New Orleans.
“Rats are eating our marijuana,” New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Supervisor Anne Kirkpatrick told a City Council committee Monday. “They’re all facts.”
Luckily, experts assure us that rats are probably not getting high:
“If rats ate raw cannabis, I would be very surprised if they actually got high,” said Matt Hill, a professor at the University of Calgary. Axios. Heat is needed to activate THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, said Hill, who studies rats and weed (a surprisingly robust field!). If the rats actually got high, the rodents sharing ownership with the NOPD would likely be noticeably more docile, lazy, and less aggressive.
What a relief! We wouldn’t want the rats of New Orleans to become more docile and lazy.
However, this situation reveals a possible justification for marijuana prohibition that critics – myself included – have thus far overlooked: Confiscated marijuana is a valuable food source for rats! And not just in New Orleans. Even rodents as far away as India and Argentina have eaten grass seized by law enforcement. What will they do if deprived of their food supplies? We certainly wouldn’t want them to starve! Will no one think about the poor rodents?
This wouldn’t be the first animal welfare rationale for banning pot. Back in 2014, the then-DEA administrator argued that legalizing marijuana posed a health risk to dogs (he was largely wrong). An Illinois police official later warned that legalization would force law enforcement to do away with drug-sniffing dogs.
It may only be a matter of time before drug warriors unleash the argument that prohibition is necessary to create a paradise for rats: