1 Paracelsus, the Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, sometimes called the father of toxicology, famously wrote: “Alle Ding’ sind Gift, und nichts ohn’ Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist” (“All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous.”), see Madea, B., Mußhoff, F., and Berghaus, G., Verkehrsmedizin: Fahreignung, Fahrsicherheit, Unfallrekonstruktion (Köln: Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag 2007), p. 435.Google Scholar

2 For an informative study that compares the regulatory classification of drugs with the actual harm produced by the abuse of the respective drugs, see Nutt, D., King, L.A., Saulsbury, W., Blakemore, C., “Development of a Rational Scale to Assess the harm of Drugs of Potential Misuse”, 369(9566) The Lancet (2007), pp. 1047–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 For hormesis research, see the journal Dose-Response, available on the Internet at <http://www.dose-response.com>, published by the International Dose-Response Society in Amherst, MA.

4 Wilson, Richard, Crouch, Edmund, Risk-Benefit Analysis, 2nd. Ed. (Harvard University Press 2001).Google ScholarPubMed

5 For a brief benefit-costs analysis of gambling, see the chapter “Balancing Costs and Benefits”, in Korn, David A. and Shaffer, Howard J., “Gambling and the Health of the Public: Adopting a Public Health Perspective”, 15(4) Journal of Gambling Studies (1999), pp. 289–365, at pp. 322–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

6 Our own phrasing, but based on the elements suggested by Howard Shaffer, “What is addiction?”, available on the Internet at <http://www.divisiononaddictions.org/html/whatisaddiction.htm> (last accessed on 8 November 2010).

7 Zinberg, Norman, Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use (Yale University Press 1986).Google Scholar

8 In a very informative interview, Prof. Geoffrey Hazard explains the substantial differences of U.S. damages awards as a compensation for regulatory failure and the lack of a social safety net, cf. International Dispute Negotiation (IDN) podcast of 17 July 2009, American Exceptionalism: Geoffrey Hazard on U.S. Civil Justice v. the Rest of the World, available on the Internet at <http://podcasts.cpradr.org/cpradr/mp3/IDN75.mp3>.

9 For a recent case, cf. Joined Cases C-158/04 and C-159/04 Alfa Vita Vassilopoulos AE, formerly Trofo Super-Markets AE v. Elliniko Dimosio and Nomarkhiaki Aftodiikisi Ioanninon (C-158/04) and Carrefour-Marinopoulos AE v. Elliniko Dimosio and Nomarkhiaki Aftodiikisi Ioanninon (C-159/04) [2006] ECR I-8135, para. 25 as suggested by Advocate General Poiares Maduro in his opinion, point 62.

10 Chalmers, Damien, Davies, Gareth, Monti, Giorgio, European Union Law, 2nd. Ed. (Cambridge University Press 2010), pp. 768–769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Turner, B., “The Erosion of Citizenship”, 52(2) British Journal of Sociology (2001), pp. 189–209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

12 Geremek, Bronislaw, Common Roots of Europe (Cambridge: Polity Press 1992).Google Scholar

13 La Pietà is the illustration of Mary holding the body of Jesus. The most well-known version hereof is the sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti in Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.

14 Cf., e.g., Aristoteles, The Nicomachean Ethic and in particular his Politics.

15 The WHO global burden of disease (GBD) measures burden of disease using the disability-adjusted life year (DALY). Available on the Internet at <http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/>.

16 Mozaffarian, Dariush, Wilson, Peter W.F. and Kannel, William B., “Beyond Established and Novel Risk Factors: Lifestyle Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease”, 117 Circulation (2008), pp. 3031–3038, at p. 3032.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

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18 However, equally, genetic risks impact on lifestyle risks. Some individuals or population groups are more susceptible to certain lifestyle risk as a consequence of their genetic make-up. See for instance, Potenza, M.N., Xian, H., Shah, K., Scherrer, J.F., Eisen, S.A., “Shared Genetic Contributions to Pathological Gambling and Major Depression in Men”, Source: 62(9) Archives of General Psychiatry (2005), pp. 1015–1021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 For a recent critique see Kysar, Douglas A., Regulating from Nowhere (Yale University Press 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Thaler, Richard and Sunstein, Cass, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (Penguin 2009)Google Scholar; Bok, Derek, The Politics of Happiness (Princeton 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar