Richard Nelson

Until the brain is fully developed, good public policy steps in to protect young people from potential harms of tobacco and alcohol. The same is true when it comes to protecting pocketbooks, writes Commonwealth Policy Center executive director Richard Nelson.

"Moral force is necessary for moral change to take place," Richard Nelson, executive director of the Commonwealth Policy Center, writes in a viewpoint for Hoptown Chronicle. "The force that animated abolitionists to end slavery in the 19th century and propelled the civil rights movement of the 1960s must be embraced if we’re to see full reconciliation between the races in the 21st century."

When health experts uniformly advise that a crisis is coming, it's wise to heed their counsel and to take certain precautions to stem catastrophe.