HOUSTON — As New Orleans police seize marijuana, they can't stop some inside the department headquarters from consuming the confiscated stash.

It's not officers they're having trouble with, but rather rats that have infested the building for years.

"The rats are eating our marijuana," Anne Kirkpatrick, police chief in the southern US city said. "They're all high."

Ms Kirkpatrick made her comments while speaking to a city council meeting earlier this week, according to local media.

Rats and cockroaches have apparently long infested the police department headquarters, originally built in 1968. 

"It is not just at police headquarters. It is all the districts. The uncleanliness is off the charts," Ms Kirkpatrick said, according to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate newspaper. 

"The janitorial cleaning (team) deserves an award for trying to clean what is uncleanable."

The city is home to nearly 400,000 people and known for its late-night partying as well as its distinct history as a former Spanish and French colony, which influences the local culture and food scene to this day. 

Police there have been pushing for a new headquarters for years. 

"It's horrible," one officer told the newspaper. 

"I don't think it ever recovered from Katrina, to be honest," the officer said, referencing the catastrophic hurricane that inundated the city in 2005. AFP