TOM WOOD is a man who likes to be in control. Sitting in the cafe of the City Art Centre, he may look relaxed, a slight tan highlighted by his white hair and crisp white and blue pinstripe shirt, and navy suit, but the A4 pad filled with notes with which he wants to guide our interview is a slight giveaway.
As is the venue. Who knows what his working environment is like? Are there family photographs on his desk, or perhaps a few mementoes from his time with Lothian and Borders Police, or even a replica of his sailing yacht, the Sundance? He's giving no
insight into any of that.
Maybe it's decorated with posters blaring out the dangers of drugs and alcohol. After all he's been chairman of Action on Alcohol and Drugs in Edinburgh (AADE), or the city's drugs tsar, for the last three and a half years, since retiring from the force after a 38-year career. The cafe, could then, just be the less bland option.
But bland is a word that cannot be used to describe Wood, who has long been one of Edinburgh's more colourful characters.
He may have started out directing traffic, but he ended up the second most powerful cop in town – although some believe he wielded more power than his boss.
He has been incredibly high profile, becoming associated with controversial subjects, from prostitution to drugs, and corruption.
He is widely regarded as the architect of a change of policy to make the city's street sex trade safer, including the softer approach taken towards the city's saunas. He has demanded a re-evaluation of rape laws, and even opened discussion about the decriminalisation of drugs.
Of course you don't get to be high-ranking cop without making enemies. Which is no doubt why he was investigated after being accused of passing confidential information to a murderer and jeopardising a drugs operation. He was exonerated.
Perhaps, though, it was because he was the force's first press officer that has enabled him to become such a public figure – and to know what he wants to say to the press, and how he wants to say it. He may appear affable, but there's more than a hint of steel lurking behind those twinkling blue eyes.
So it's odd to hear him say that people must be "fed up" seeing his face in the papers, that it's time to let others take over.
In a week's time, he will stand down from his job with AADE and will do . . . what? "I'm not being deliberately coy, I just haven't made up my mind yet," he smiles. "I have a few options, some related to what I've been doing, others not.
"But I have a genuine issue about shelf life. There are times to stay and times to move on."
The time to move on it seems is the day after the launch of a new drugs strategy for the Lothians.
Wood started the job amid controversy. There were allegations of "jobs for the boys" as the post wasn't advertised and despite interest from another equally qualified former police officer, there was no interview process.
He refuses to be drawn on the subject. "Whether I was the right person for the job is not a matter for me to comment on."
But he goes on: "I came to this job thinking I knew all there was to know about drug and alcohol issues. But I found out my view was pretty one dimensional.
"Recovery is possible, but to get there we have to look at the impact of drugs – and alcohol – across the board.
"I have come to realise that while enforcement has an important role to play, it's a supporting role, because what we're really dealing with is a community health issue. Not a medical issue but health, as regards lifestyle and how it affects the way we live our lives. Only if you see it that way can you make progress."
Wood believes that such was the panic about intravenous drug use in the late 70s and early 80s, and the possibility of an Aids and HIV epidemic, that the approach to dealing with drugs was too reactionary.
"The whole debate about drugs and alcohol has been overshadowed by a moral view in Scotland, as well as ignorance and fear. So the response has been to take a very tough, masculine approach to it – of which I was a part.
"Looking back, people made some very courageous decisions about free needle exchange and the introduction of methadone. These things are not sexy or popular, but they were hugely valuable. But all they did was hold the position and we have not done enough about recovery."
Recovery will be a major part of the new drugs strategy, and Wood is obviously proud of what it will set out. "The new strategy will be emphasising prevention and recovery. The system has to be in place for people to recover – not for the sake of goodness but for economic reasons.
"We've also got to look at drugs, and alcohol, in relation to mental health, housing, employment, community regeneration and family protection. These people are members of our society and we need to do what we can to get them on the right road."
He believes that the city is already on that road, as the numbers using drugs services has fallen in the past three years from 5000 to 4000 and his team has been instrumental in helping NHS Lothian establish the Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme, as well as Prepare, a support project that helps pregnant alcoholics and addicts cope with motherhood.
"It's too simplistic to just take away the children of addicts. Every case has to be looked at individually. Prepare is helping keep families together.
"Overall there's a better range of services than we had. And we managed to get external funding into the city to help, unfortunately that's been offset by cuts to the local authority budget."
Ah yes, the council. Perhaps his decision to go has been influenced by recent changes there? After all, the man who'll replace him is Peter Gabbitas, council director of health and social care.
"The change in administration hasn't really affected anything. I'm very interested in politics, but extremely suspicious of the role of political parties. But I think it's right that the AADE role goes to someone who has institutional power within the local authority and the health board. To make the changes that need to be made is going to need somebody who is actually able to make them."
He's also realistic. He knows drug fashions change.
"In the next five to ten years there will be a rise in cocaine use and other stimulants, so the services will have to adapt to that. There's no alternative for cocaine, like methadone for heroin.
"Already Aberdeen has a problem with stimulants and we're starting to see that here. On the west coast the problem is still heroin. It's the same in different areas of Edinburgh, some will have problems with stimulants, or prescribed medications, others heroin.
"And then there's alcohol. Quite rightly that's making the headlines again.
"We have to regulate the price of alcohol, and the Government has started that. We have to regulate availability so it's not treated like bread and milk and available in every shop. And we have to make sure there are services for early prevention, education, and preventing the advertising of alcohol everywhere.
"But we also need to enforce the law. The council, the licensing board and the police need to place alcohol high on the list of their priorities."
You might imagine the party invites have dried up since he became drugs tsar, but he says it's quite the opposite. So has he ever touched drugs himself?
"I've never even smoked," he says. "My father was a heavy smoker which killed him at 65. And before you ask I've never tried heroin. I have enjoyed the odd glass of wine though."
The father-of-two also enjoys getting outdoors – either on his motorbike, or his yacht. Every year I go on a motorbike holiday, this year it will be the north of Scotland with some friends. I will also do some sailing. My boat is at Port Edgar – it's something I've done since a teenager. She's called Sundance, though that was the name she had when I bought her and it's unlucky to change it. I'm no Butch Cassidy."
So is he going off into the sunset after all? "I've just not decided what I'm doing," he emphasises. "But I'm leaving this role with optimism for where we are at this moment. Carry on doing what we're doing, we will make a difference."
RISE THROUGH THE RANKSHE was a teenage beat bobby who rose to the number two job with Lothian and Borders Police.
When Tom Wood joined the police in Edinburgh 40 years ago, he became one of the last officers to do regular points duty on Princes Street.
He was on the beat in Stockbridge and drove Panda cars in Drylaw before being picked out and sent on an accelerated promotion course. In 1975, he became a sergeant at the same time as his father, Reg, was a sergeant in Leith.
As an inspector in the CID, he worked on the Caroline Hogg murder inquiry in 1983, in the hunt for the culprit – child serial killer Robert Black.
He was then appointed the Lothian and Borders force's first press officer, returning to the CID two years later as a Detective Superintendent and then spending four months in the US on a special course with the FBI.
Spells as divisional commander in the southside and West Lothian followed, along with a Masters degree in legal studies from Edinburgh University, before he was appointed Assistant Chief Constable in 1992, then deputy in 1998, before stepping down in 2004, at the age of 55.
His duties have included policing most of Edinburgh's big events, from the annual Hogmanay celebrations to the state visit of the King of Norway.
