Capture-recapture, an indirect method widely used to estimate undetected populations, has been criticized because it causes problems due to a lack of compliance with several important assumptions and model selection strategies. This paper expands on the problems encountered when applying this methodology to drug abuse estimations, specifically the prevalence of opiate use in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain, in 1993. Three samples of opiate users (from hospital emergency rooms, treatment centers, and prisons) were available in the area studied; an additional sample (mortality data) was analyzed for the city of Barcelona. Log-linear models that provided a good fit were considered, to which further model selection strategies were applied. A total of 3,207 unique individuals aged 15-44 years were identified in the three samples from the greater Barcelona area; the mortality sample from the city of Barcelona contained an additional 83 individuals. Heterogeneity was observed in different age, sex, and residence area subgroups. Population estimates differed widely according to the log-linear model chosen. Minimum Akaike's information criterion model and saturated model estimates were used to produce population prevalence rates. The main problems the authors encountered in this study were related to population definition, source heterogeneity, and assessment of an adequate model, a problem associated with sample size.

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This article reports on the ethnographical study carried out among an opiate consumer community in Barcelona (Spain) and analyses the meanings that those consumers build and handle around the substances that they consume. Our approach emphasises the point of view of the consumers in their understanding of drugs and the type of relationships that they maintain between themselves and with their social environment.

This article aims to explore the psychosocial practices in one of the sites that respond to vulnerable women who suffer abuse in their couple relationships: the criminal justice system. A discursive theoretical-methodological perspective is used (Foucault 1969; Ibáñez and Iñiguez 1997; Wetherell and Potter 1993), based on the discourse analysis and their positions that can be found in the practices of professionals in the criminal justice system (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police), as well as in some of the narratives of vulnerable women. These accounts have been gathered through participant observations in courtrooms and police stations where complaints are fi led, and through in-depth interviews. The results show the infl uence and the effects of: (a) an 'empiricist position' characterised by objectivity and emotional distance, and (b) a 'professional position' characterised by the predominance of professional roles and pragmatic experiences over refl exive practice. Nevertheless, emerging resistant practices include elements that could be placed in a 'feminist position' and provide new insights for the treatment of vulnerable women.

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