This is the second of a series of studies planned to explore the epidemiology of nonmedical use of drugs among Egyptian youth. A standardized questionnaire with well established reliability and validity estimates was administered to a representative sample of technical school students in Greater Cairo, numbering 3686 male pupils. The questionnaire was designed to shed light on the extent of use of nonmedical drugs plus the aetiology of such use. Among the interesting findings are the following: about 5% of the students tried at least one type of synthetic drugs; slightly over 11% tried narcotics and 33% used alcohol at least once. In all cases of 'ever using' drugs those who stopped the practice were mainly motivated by fear of expected physical as well as psychological harm. An attempt was made to shed light on psychosocial factors contributing to the actual initiation of drug use as well as to being prone to such use.