  We introduce a statistical agent based model to describe the phenomenon of
drug abuse and its dynamical evolution at the individual and global level. The
agents are heterogeneous with respect to their intrinsic inclination to drugs,
to their budget attitude and social environment. The various levels of drug use
were inspired by the professional description of the phenomenon and this
permits a direct comparison with all available data. We show that certain
elements have a great importance to start the use of drugs, for example the
rare events in the personal experiences which permit to overcame the barrier of
drug use occasionally. The analysis of how the system reacts to perturbations
is very important to understand its key elements and it provides strategies for
effective policy making. The present model represents the first step of a
realistic description of this phenomenon and can be easily generalized in
various directions.
