As a first step, Tennant would like to see states experiment with various approaches to drug policy, including decriminalization of marijuana, a drug he considers much less dangerous than the government claims. He thinks it plausible that in 15 years Americans will be able to purchase pot legally.
This is the same man who made waves in the 1980s by promoting a home eye test kit to help parents detect and deter drug use by their children. Parents were supposed to administer the test every few days, beginning when their kids were about 7. No one could have accused Forest Tennant of being soft on drugs.
Tennant is by no means the only former drug warrior who has become a critic of current policy. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), founded last year, includes more than 400 current and former police officers, judges, federal agents, prosecutors, and parole, probation, and corrections officers. The group is headed by Jack Cole, a 26-year veteran of the New Jersey State Police who worked in narcotics enforcement for 14 years.
"After three decades of fueling the U.S. war on drugs with over half a trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies," says LEAP, "illicit drugs are easier to get, cheaper, and more potent than they were 30 years ago. While our court system is choked with ever-increasing drug prosecutions, our quadrupled prison population has made building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry. . . . Meanwhile people are dying in our streets and drug barons grow richer than ever before. We must change these policies."
As an attorney quoted in a recent Seattle Weekly article about LEAP observed, "The news story is not that the war on drugs has failed. It's who's saying it now."