Explaining Trends in Regulating Addictive Behavior – The Role of Policy Coherence

This paper analyzes addictive behavior policy regimes – focusing on illegal drugs and gambling – in 19 countries over a period of 50 years. Specifically, it compares how these countries have restricted the consumption and possession of cannabis and the participation in sports betting while also considering how the countries have sanctioned violations of these rules. Turning to theories of policy convergence, we are able to explain why most of the countries have liberalized their sports betting monopolies but have maintained restrictive drug policy regimes. Standard explanatory factors cannot account for all of the empirical variation observed, however. We show how Portugal, a case which deviates in both sectors from the expected trend, can be explained by taking the concept of policy coherence into account.