We are getting a weird DROP DATABASE error

>>>>>>>>>
2007-06-10 11:25:41 db 527 DEBUG DROP DATABASE BCS

OperationalError: (1051, "Unknown table
'assignments,chemo,choicelists,dia,forms
,horm,id,permissions,qhistory,qnotes,qstates,quest ionnaires,r'")
<<<<<<<<<<<

the thing is, there is NO table 'r' ... can't tell if that's just the
truncation of long string, since we do have tables that begin with the
letter 'r'. but if its a truncation, which is the offending table, since
the ones in the string as shown are there as advertised. also, is that
correct that MySQL says 'table' (not plural), but then lists a set of
tables??? Has MySQL made itself believe taht string is one long table
name. please note: we are acccessing MySQL through the python mysqldb
wrapper. but we did simply execute the query 'DROP DATABASE BCS' which i
THINK is passed straight through to the MySQL engine.

query: does "drop database XXX" delete tables regardless of foreign key
constraints? we are using innodb. but i thought "drop database xxx"
deletes tables with extreme prejudice. but if its a constraint issue,
then why the "unknown table" error?

thanks.

Les Schaffer