Reddit | Quouar

Police Warn That Flushing Drugs Down The Toilet Could Lead To 'Meth-Gators'

Even if you want absolutely nothing to do with illicit drugs, it's still not impossible to come across them.

Sometimes, parents can discover that their children have brought them home and it's not as if other family members are necessarily immune from that business either.

For many people who make such a discovery, their first instinct is to get this stuff out of their house and as far away from them as possible.

And if they're panicking and convince themselves that the police might think the drugs belong to them, they might be inclined to flush them down the toilet.

Unfortunately, it turns out that this is a worse idea than we might have expected.

On Saturday. police in Loretto, Tennessee entered a suspect's home with a search warrant.

YouTube | Thomas Nagel

As The Daily Mail reported, they apprehended a man named Andy Perry while he was trying to flush some methamphetamine down his toilet.

As they put it, "He was unsuccessful."

Upon arresting him, police recovered 12 grams of meth, 24 ounces of liquid meth and some assorted drug paraphernalia.

Facebook | Loretto Police Department

Perry was charged with possession of Schedule II drugs for resale, possession of drug paraphernalia, and tampering with evidence. He is now at Lawrence County Jail.

At this point, this seems like a fairly standard arrest report.

However, Perry's attempt at destroying the evidence gave police an opportunity for an unusual public service announcement.

YouTube | Erlend Midtgård Paulsen

They started their message to the community with "Folks, please don't flush your drugs m'kay."

And their reason was that once they get into sewage systems, the drugs will remain potent enough to "create meth-gators."

Reddit | Quouar

They didn't necessarily elaborate on what that means as this amazing term is more than enough for us to imagine how a meth-gator would behave.

Yeah, I said 'meth gators.'

This is the point we're at in society folks. Meth Gators. I don't want to be judgey or anything, but something tells me that we're really not prepared to confront the truths of humanity in the form of meth gators.

They did explain, however, how we could conceivably end up with meth-gators.

Reddit | olenine

As they said, anything that sends up in the sewer system is eventually processed at a water retention pond like this one.

Although they assured us that those in charge of this processing pride themselves on their water treatment abilities, they're not prepared to deal with meth.

And even if they were, it's not unusual for ducks, geese and other waterfowl to enter these treatment ponds.

Reddit | Toronto_man

Anyone who ever dealt with a goose that thinks they've wandered into its territory can definitely imagine how much worse that experience would be if the goose was on meth.

As it stands, however, there's nothing stopping the drugs from travelling down the Tennessee River to North Alabama.

Reddit | guitamnandakumar

There, they posited, the flushed drugs would then create the meth-gators.

As they put it, "They've had enough methed up animals the past few weeks without our help."

Instead, police recommend contacting them for any drugs that require disposal.

YouTube | The Simpsons

They also made clear that their definition of "drugs" includes prescription pills, which can also be dropped off at a special container at City Hall.

Now they just need a way to convince those with unwanted drugs that this isn't a sting operation.

So maybe we won't ACTUALLY be confronting meth gators anytime soon.

But in the event that we do, at least we know they're coming and can properly prepare.

As for the issue of finding illicit drugs in your home, just, er, play that one by ear.

h/t: The Daily Mail