A research interview was used to evaluate the relationships between DSM-IV, DSM-III-R and ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for substance use disorders. The sample of 1992 subjects, including both men and women, was composed of subjects and their relatives from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) study. With regard to diagnoses of substance dependence, the analyses revealed tha the proportions of individuals diagnosed in the three systems were similar, with the highest numbers observed for DSM-III-R, the lowest for ICD-10 and the figures for DSM-IV between the two. The kappas for dependence diagnoses ranged from 0.54 to 0.83, with the majority at 0.7 and higher, indicating that the same subjects were being given the same labels in the three systems. However, the criteria for abuse or harmful use resulted in rather disparate proportions labeled across the three systems, with kappas that rarely exceeded 0.10.