The question of control is a touchy one. No segment of the population feels powerlessness more acutely than Downtown Eastside drug addicts. Even the average citizen finds it difficult to question medical authority, for a host of cultural and psychological reasons. As an authority figure, the doctor triggers deeply ingrained feelings of childhood powerlessness in many of us—I had that experience even years after completing medical training when I needed care for myself. But in the case of the drug addict, the disempowerment is real, palpable and quite in the present. Engaged in illegal
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