alcohol and nicotine are legal almost everywhere, but there are a lot of taxes on the sale of these. in other words, they are expensive to buy. being expensive to buy because of taxes has two benefits; one is that the taxes collected from the sale of the drugs goes into helping to pay for assistance the drug user may experience later. a smoker, for example, may develop cancer later in life and need treatment at a place that is granted a certain amount of tax money from the government to keep it operating. another benefit to the taxing of "legal" drugs, is that the high price may stop people from beginning the habit in the first place, which will help them avoid the negative medical or addictive side effects of the drug. in some cases, not everyone is allowed to buy these drugs unless they are a minimal age to do so. the age at which someone is allowed to buy a legal drug is most often decided by the government of a country, state or province, and is usually the age where a person is considered by the law to be an "adult". some of the most common ages this happens is at 18, 19 or 21 years of age.