Pubdate: Wed, 06 May 2015
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Copyright: 2015 The Oregonian
Contact:  http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/324
Author: Noelle Crombie

PHILLIP LEVEQUE, EARLY ADVOCATE FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN OREGON, DIES

Phillip Leveque, a longtime marijuana legalization advocate, died 
Saturday in Happy Valley. He was 92.

Leveque was one of the first physicians in Oregon to sign off on 
patients' use of the drug after the state's medical marijuana law was 
passed in 1998, said Paul Stanford, another longtime advocate of 
marijuana legalization and a friend of Leveque's.

Leveque was a regular co-host of Stanford's weekly show, Cannabis 
Common Sense. Stanford said the pair hosted 350 episodes of the show 
between 1998 and 2006.

After medical marijuana became legal, lines of prospective patients 
lined up to meet Leveque to ask for medical marijuana 
recommendations, said Stanford. Stanford, who owns medical marijuana 
clinics, said Leveque traveled the state to see people who wanted to 
use marijuana as medicine.

"He is gratefully appreciated by many, many thousands of people in 
the state," Stanford said.

Sandee Burbank, a medical marijuana advocate who owns medical 
marijuana clinics in Oregon, said in the early years of the medical 
marijuana program Leveque was one of the only doctors who would help 
sick people obtain permission to use medical marijuana.

"He was the only one that was aggressively doing that," said Burbank, 
who said Leveque signed off on her first medical marijuana card 
around 1999. "He stood up and he took the hits."

Leveque's death was noted by several prominent marijuana activists in 
Oregon, including Anthony Johnson, chief petitioner of Measure 91. 
The measure, approved by Oregon voters last fall, legalizes marijuana 
for people 21 and older and creates a regulated marijuana industry.

In 2004, Leveque's license to practice medicine was revoked by the 
Oregon Medical Board after the board found he signed medical 
marijuana forms without seeing patients or reviewing their records.

Leveque, who practiced medicine in Molalla, accused the board of 
targeting him for his medical marijuana authorizations. In an 
interview with The Oregonian in 2012, he said he authorized medical 
marijuana for many patients after phone consultations because they 
were disabled and unable to travel to his office. Stanford said 
Leveque had prostate cancer.

His wife, Eve, died in 2004. He is survived by four children.

Asked in February by a KOIN 6 reporter how he wanted to be 
remembered, Leveque said simply: "Pot doc."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom