Forest S. Tennant Jr. is an American physician, writer, businessman, consultant, and former mayor of West Covina, California. Tennant has earned recognition as an expert in pain management and substance dependence and has also been involved in some controversies.
Education and early career
Tennant was born into a farm family in Dodge City, Kansas. He graduated from the University of Missouri and, in 1966, the University of Kansas School of Medicine. He served in Vietnam as a Major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and was an Army surgeon in Germany, where he first came into contact with patients with drug problems. In 1972, Tennant earned a Doctorate of Public Health at the UCLA School of Public Health of the University of California, Los Angeles. His doctoral thesis was informed by his experience treating service personnel. As a post-doctorate fellow, Tennant was appointed director of UCLA's methadone program, and was an associate professor at the school.
Physician and writer
Tennant specializes in pain management and drug addiction. He is a strong advocate for intractable pain patients, arguing that opioids can be safe and effective even when applied over long durations, and helped push the "Pain Patient's Bill of Rights" law through the California legislature. Tennant has authored over 200 articles and books, including many to help intractable pain patients, and is editor-in-chief of the journal Practical Pain Management. The late Zig Ziglar described Tennant as "perhaps the number one drug authority in the world".
Businesses and consultancies
Until his retirement in 2018, Tennant operated a pain management clinic, Veract Intractable Pain Clinic in West Covina, California. The clinic, opened in 1975, originally focused primarily on cancer patients and post-polio pain.
Tennant has been a substance abuse consultant for the California Department of Justice, the California Highway Patrol (where he taught officers how to recognize symptoms of drug use) and hundreds of private companies, including Texaco and the Southern Pacific Railroad.
He operated a drug testing and drug education consultancy, with clients including the National Football League (NFL), the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), and the Los Angeles Dodgers. With the Dodgers, Tennant worked with players including Steve Howe, a promising left-hander whose career was ultimately derailed by substance abuse.
Tennant terminated his relationship with the NFL in April 1989, and Tennant's handling of some matters while working for the NFL, particularly in the Clarence Kay case, were later criticized. Tennant was accused of being involved with reporting a false result of a drug test of NASCAR driver Tim Richmond; the resulting lawsuit was settled out of court, and NASCAR terminated its relationship with Tennant in 1990.
Tennant became involved with methadone clinics in 1972 when he became director of UCLA's methadone treatment program, later creating the nonprofit Community Health Projects, Inc. which operated 29 methadone facilities in California. His clinics were repeatedly cited by California and federal authorities for serious and continuous deficiencies and on several occasions had to reimburse the state for overcharges. In March 1997, following a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, Tennant and Community Health Projects paid $625,000 to settle allegations that many of his clinics violated record-keeping requirements. According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Richardson Pelliccioni, record-keeping was so poor at the clinics that methadone supplies could not be tracked adequately.
Federal prosecutors said it was the long history of uncorrected violations that forced Tennant and his chain to pay the U.S. government $625,000 and avoid a civil lawsuit. Tennant and Community Health Projects denied wrongdoing and said they were victims of federal rules that were vague, bewildering, inconsistent, unevenly enforced, and contradictory to California law, and that no clinic could withstand the special scrutiny that Community Health Projects received as the state's largest and most visible provider of methadone treatment. Tennant called for new state legislation to clarify methadone regulations.