These included major surveys of accident and emergency departments and long term studies of coroners' courts and of the Home Office Index of Addict Deaths.
He established the International Centre for Drug Policy at St George's University of London and over the years attracted substantial funding for research programmes and projects in psychiatry, mental health, addictions and medical education.
He established undergraduate, postgraduate and multi-professional training programmes in addiction, the benefit of which is reflected in the numbers of senior academics, consultant psychiatrists, public health practitioners, specialist nurses, social workers and psychologists leading the delivery of services in communities throughout the United Kingdom and many other parts of the world.
A long list of teaching and training programmes which Professor Ghodse helped to establish includes addiction prevention in primary care, and educational courses for general practitioners and for prison service medical and nursing staff.
Hamid Ghodse was one of the 13 elected members of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), an independent treaty body associated with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, from 1992 to his death.
Over the years he vigorously tried to bring to the attention of governments the need to ensure adequate access to narcotic analgesics and other internationally controlled drugs for legitimate medical and scientific purposes.
He addressed the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, ECOSOC, and the World Health Assembly as well as national parliaments and international conferences and was an advocate for debate on controversial drug-related issues.