Our friend Jasper Woodcock, who has died aged 89, was director of the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence from 1975 until his retirement in 1993, helping that body build up a substantial reputation for providing impartial, evidence-based information about drugs. The organisation later merged with the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse to become DrugScope in 2000 (which has recently closed down due to lack of funds).
During his time at the Institute, Jasper successfully fought all challenges to the organisation’s unbiased stance and helped it grow into a respected provider of pioneering research into drug education, prevention and the illicit drug market – not least through its magazine, Druglink. In recognition of this work, he was appointed OBE in 1986 and received unusual consent for his Chinese wife, Thérèse, a child psychotherapist, to attend Buckingham Palace hatless.
Jasper was born in Upminster, Essex, to Rollo Woodcock, a designer and engineer, who died when he was four, and Esther (nee Wedgewood Holmes), a secretary. He studied at Felsted school, Essex, and went on to Keble College, Oxford, earning a degree in philosophy, politics and economics, which was interrupted in 1943 by second world war service in the RAF. After the war he worked as a copywriter in the pharmaceutical industry before moving to the London Hospital Medical College as a researcher in the department of pharmacology and then on to the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence.
Jasper combined a capacity for sardonic dismissal of cant with a wish for greater kindness and generosity in the world. He shared his joy in life with everyone around him, be it classical music, fireworks, solar eclipses or a bottle of wine. Although over 80 when visiting Turkey, he climbed the hills of Chimaera to see the flames leaping from the rocks; delight trumped age.
He is survived by Thérèse, to whom he was married for 46 years, and by their children, Rosamund and Sebastian.
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