I first met Dave in the flesh at the inception of the International Drug Policy Consortium, IDPC, some time in the late noughties. Although I was at that time a complete innocent in the world of international drug control and the UN agencies that structure it, he treated me with the utmost kindness and respect. I would go on to learn from him the pathways down which to negotiate this mysterious domain.
Sharing flats as colleagues in Vienna and other continental cities, we quickly became fast friends, working together, talking, eating, walking and laughing together. I was impressed with Dave’s extensive drug policy knowledge, and greedily syphoned up as much of it as I could. I was equally impressed with his humility and told him once that he wore his learning lightly. ‘It’s easy to wear it lightly, ‘he replied, ‘when there’s not much of it.’ This is not true, but for his many friends, is perhaps a typical nugget of his richly self-deprecating humour. Much hilarity accompanied our evenings in Vienna, much of which I cannot repeat here, but I value the memories of it as much I do his books and papers, some of which I'm proud to say we wrote together.
Dave seemed to know everyone in the Drug Control apparatus and the NGOs and academies critical of it – but would also speak warmly of his wife and kids. His family life was precious to him, his wife Cath and his kids Poppy and Fynn. Even more than the rest of us, they will miss Dave Bewley-Taylor.
I first met Dave in the flesh at the inception of the International Drug Policy Consortium, IDPC, some time in the late noughties. Although I was at that time a complete innocent in the world of international drug control and the UN agencies that structure it, he treated me with the utmost kindness and respect. I would go on to learn from him the pathways down which to negotiate this mysterious domain.
Sharing flats as colleagues in Vienna and other continental cities, we quickly became fast friends, working together, talking, eating, walking and laughing together. I was impressed with Dave’s extensive drug policy knowledge, and greedily syphoned up as much of it as I could. I was equally impressed with his humility and told him once that he wore his learning lightly. ‘It’s easy to wear it lightly, ‘he replied, ‘when there’s not much of it.’ This is not true, but for his many friends, is perhaps a typical nugget of his richly self-deprecating humour. Much hilarity accompanied our evenings in Vienna, much of which I cannot repeat here, but I value the memories of it as much I do his books and papers, some of which I'm proud to say we wrote together.
Dave seemed to know everyone in the Drug Control apparatus and the NGOs and academies critical of it – but would also speak warmly of his wife and kids. His family life was precious to him, his wife Cath and his kids Poppy and Fynn. Even more than the rest of us, they will miss Dave Bewley-Taylor.
