The current work is part of a series of epidemiological studies on the extent and patterns of the non-medical use of psychoactive substances by significant sectors of the Egyptian population. A standardized interviewing schedule was especially constructed for the present survey and item re-take reliabilities were established. The interview was conducted on 5108 men working in the manufacturing industries. Findings are discussed and comparisons made between these results and the corresponding data obtained in our previous investigations on other sectors of the society. Egyptian industrial workers, compared with male university students seem to have a rather late age of onset of drug use, and to go for natural narcotics rather than prescription psychotropic drugs and alcohol. Much more workers than students take alcohol as an analgesic. There were, however, a number of commonalities among workers and various types of students concerning drug-related behaviour.