Good afternoon and thank you very much for joining today's Civil Society Seminar dedicated to the outcome of the ECB's strategy review. My name is Marie Therese-Bitterlich and I work in communications here at the ECB. I'll be moderating this event today. I'm delighted to be joined by Frank Smetz. Frank is the director of general economics here at the ECB and as the coordinator of the strategy review process able to share your first hand insights onto the strategy review process and of course on the new monetary policy strategy itself. We're delighted to have you to get a better understanding of what this new strategy is all about what has changed what has remained and what it means for us as citizens. We'll be structuring this seminar slightly differently than usual. We'll be starting with a conversation between Frank and myself for about 25 minutes before we'll be opening the floor to your questions for the remaining half an hour of this event. A little bit of housekeeping just before we get started. In case you have any technical problems or questions, please feel free to reach out to the colleagues in the background via the chat function and just make sure that you're chatting with all panelists. As we mentioned in the invitation of the seminar, we'll be recording the seminar and uploading it to the ECB's website afterwards. With that out of the way, let's get started. Frank, last week the president announced the outcome of the ECB strategy review. The president referred to the new strategy as a strong foundation that will guide us in our conduct of monetary policy in the years to come. Can you explain what this new strategy is all about and how it differs from the previous one? Sure, my ideas and let me first of all welcome the participants to this webinar on the new monetary policy strategy. One way of describing the new monetary policy strategy is to use the words of chair Powell of the American Central Bank when he introduced their new strategy. This to say that it's an evolution, not a revolution. And the main reason for that is that of course the strategy is anchored in the treaty, which gives the primary mandate to the ECB of maintaining price stability. So the ECB is requested to stabilize to maintain the value of our money of our currency, the euro. And that's the best way in which it can contribute to the welfare and the well-being of your area citizens. And of course that's very much an anchor when the strategy in the end is about how to achieve that mandate. But of course, the last strategy was about 18 years ago in 2003 and many things have changed. And of course, and for that reason, an update of the strategy was overdue. And this is really why President Lagarde when she became president at the end of 2019 sort of initiated this whole process. I mean, the biggest change is probably that we've moved from a relatively inflationary environment into sort of a low interest rate, low inflation environment. Why is that important for central banks? And this is a global phenomenon. Everywhere in the world, central banks were constrained in terms of using their traditional interest rate instrument by this low interest rate environment. Why? Because interest rates can go negative, but not infinitely, so they cannot go very negative. And so central banks have used other tools to try to achieve their price stability objective in that context. So that's one important reason. There have been many other structural changes in the past two decades. One is the process of globalization. Remember the integration of China in the world economy that has put downward pressures on international prices. Another important structural change has been digitalization. Think about the emergence of e-commerce. Again, everything else equal. This has a downward impact on prices. And so it was important to analyze those phenomena and to see what are the implications for our monetary policy strategy. And now I have not yet mentioned, of course, what is probably the biggest challenge for humankind in the coming decades, which is climate change and the policies to combat climate change. So that part of the strategy. And so the purpose of the whole process was really to make our strategy fit for purpose for the coming years. Thank you very much, Frank. What do you think is the most important change that came with this new strategy? Well, there have been a number of changes and we can we can talk about those. But let me maybe first focus on what is the core of the ECB monetary policy strategy. And that is how to formulate and maintain price stability. The visible change is probably the 2% symmetric inflation target. So the the governing council considers that in order to maintain price stability, it best aims for inflation to be at 2% in the medium term. Let me emphasize two aspects of this target. First of all, there's a small inflation buffer of 2%, which is important in order to reduce the risks of deflation and to give some policy space for interest rate policies in the long run. And then the other feature of this target, which is very important is that it is symmetric. So the governing council, the ECB views upward and downward deviations from this target as equally undesirable. We don't like high inflation. We don't like deflation or low inflation. And so this is a very important part of this announcement that the 2% is not a ceiling, which is sometimes what how our previous sort of definition of price stability was perceived. Of course, is very much a norm amongst central banks in the global economy. If you look at the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, they all have 2% inflation times. The second important change in the strategy statement is that the governing council recognizes that in order to maintain this symmetric inflation outcomes around 2%, it has to take into account the effective low amount on interest rates. And that interest rates cannot go very negative. I mean, the current policy rate, most important policy rate has minus 50 basis points. We probably can reduce that more but not by much. So what are the implications of that recognition? The definition I already mentioned, and that is that we need other instruments. And that's again, that's the asset purchases, that's the forward guidance, that's the lending operations, the refinancing operations towards the banks. And so part of the statement is to recognize that these unconventional what used to be called unconventional tools are part of our tool set in particular in the vicinity of this lower bound. Another indication that you will find in the monetary policy strategy statement is that the fact that you are that the central bank is more constrained in responding to negative shocks to inflation means that it has to take especially forceful persistent actions to avoid that these negative deviations become entrenched, that they affect inflation expectations, that they de-anchor inflation expectations. So this realization that when you are close to the proximity of the lower bound, that policy needs to be persistent, that it needs to be patient, that you cannot, that you should avoid premature tightening is a very important part of the overall framework. And of course, in those circumstances, it can also mean that inflation for a temporary period is moderately above the inflation target because of these patient policies. And the third implication is that, I mean, other policies can help in those circumstances and particularly fiscal policies. And that is something that we have seen in response to the pandemic. Fiscal and monetary policy have worked hand in hand to provide sort of the bridge to companies, to households across the pandemic. And particularly when interest rates are concerned, fiscal policy seems to be more, more, more effective in stabilizing the economy and helping also to increase the space for monetary policy. Thank you very much, Frank. You explained the change in the 2% and also the importance of the zero lower bound. Are there any other topics that are relevant to European citizens that are mentioned or addressed in this strategy? Yes. I mean, I would like to hear mentioned two specific topics. The first one is the concern that we've heard in many of our listening events, particularly by young households, about the costs of housing, of shelter, and particular the owner occupied by housing. This is something that the governing council took very seriously and therefore it recommends to Eurostat, which is the European Statistical Institute that is responsible for the construction of the price index to actually include measures of owner occupied housing in our HICP index, the index that we use to measure in inflation. Now, of course, the ECB realizes that this is a multi-year project, but in the meantime, we will continue to use the HICP sort of the domain index to measure inflation and price stability. But we will also include initial estimates of owner occupied housing costs in our set of indicators that we regularly use to measure inflationary pressures. And so that should allow over time to have a more representative index of the full cost of living. The second important concern, of course, that we heard was climate change and of course also there, and this is really a new element in our monetary policy strategy. Also there, the governing council has committed to take into account climate change considerations in all aspects of our monetary policy and of central banking more generally, and it has basically committed to an action plan. There was a press release last week, which sort of gives some of the details and the timeline of that action plan to do so. And this is a crucial element of our monetary policy strategy for a number of reasons. I mean, first of all, climate change and the policies to combat it, to address it, do have a profound impact on the economy. And we all are witnessing the weather shocks that we face. They affect harvest, they affect prices, and so they affect the working of the economy. And as a central bank, we need to upgrade our tools to really understand the impact and take those effects into account when we make monetary policy decisions within our mandate. The second reason is that climate change, of course, comes with risks. There will be sectors that will be affected, that will benefit. Some of them will have to change their business model. So it's important that as a central bank, we have a big balance sheet that we really assess those risks correctly. And so risk assessment, upgrading our risk assessment is another part of our action plan. And the third reason is or a third element I would like to highlight here is the importance of disclosures and making clear that indeed the transparency about where those risks are is important and how to take those into account in our collateral framework and in our asset purchase program. So I would highlight these two sort of important additional elements of our strategy. Thank you. As part of the strategy review the ECB reached out to many stakeholders on the one hand you have the experts, the academics and also citizens and civil society organizations. What do you think has the ECB learned from listening or engaging with all of these different stakeholders as part of the review? Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I mean, a big difference in this strategy review compared to the 2003, which was also involved is indeed the enormous outreach that we have done to many stakeholders. If I counted correctly, we had like 17 events organized not only here at ECB but also by the national central banks of the Euro system. And of course we received many, many suggestions and comments by citizens all over the Euro area. We also listened to expert audiences, to academics, to analysts, the European Parliament, civil society organizations like the ones you are representing and as I mentioned individual citizens and also our own staff. Of course, the messages were sort of diverse and dependent very much on the personal perspective of the respondents. But many of the issues that we heard we already discussed in our conversation and one is climate change. Another one was the affordability of housing for particularly for young people. Of course the employment situation during the pandemic is an important concern for many citizens. And then finally also the side effects of our non-conventional policies like the negative interest rates was an important question and concern. So many of these elements we have looked into and we have analyzed. But one element that I would like to highlight at this point is also the importance of clear, consistent and credible communication. Because clearly our often technical style of communicating may be okay for experts and for academics, but it's not always easily understood by citizens and civil society more generally. And so one of the lessons learned is indeed to improve our communication. Both of the decisions that the governing council makes but also about what are we as the central bank for the Euro area about what are our goals, how do we try to achieve them. And that's very important to to to maintain the trust in our institution, which is really important for the effectiveness of our monetary policy. And so, going forward, we will on the one hand, try to have sort of a more direct communication more accessible communication also more visual communication on our monetary policy decisions. On the one hand, and on the other hand, we have had a very good experience with the listening events and hope and the governing council commits to continue this type of bilateral outreach. Thank you very much Frank for elaborating on the pillars of this new strategy. I am sure that by now many of the participating organizations will have questions or comments they'd like to raise. So we'll now be opening the floor to your questions for the remaining half an hour. You can start raising your questions by raising your virtual hand, your virtual hand should be a small button that is located on the right hand side of your screen it should be located underneath the participants list. And once I see that you've raised your virtual hand, I will call your name and my lovely colleagues in the background will connect you. So just bear with us for a moment or two as it might take a while to get you upgraded and then whenever you're ready, feel free to take the floor. You'll be automatically unmuted and we do encourage you to turn on your camera as well so that we can see you when you ask your question. Please introduce yourself first and your organization before you address your comment to Frank. And do remember to lower your electronic hand after you've asked the question as this makes it easier for us to identify if you'd like to take the floor again. And with that, I'm going to take a look to see if we've got somebody who's raised the question already. I can see the first question comes from Miss Oryntia, but I hope I pronounced your name correctly and I apologize in advance if I did not. Please bear with us for one moment and you should be upgraded shortly. Hello. Hello. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm Oryntia Batahan. I'm an economist here at Positive Money Europe and NGO based in Brussels. I have a question on the targeted longer term refinancing operations. Given its volume, the CELTROs represent one of the most important ECB monetary policy operations, yet they were not included in the climate road yet. Also, green CELTROs in particular have been deemed as an interesting idea by President Lagas at the European Parliament during the monetary dialogue in September 2020. So my question is, was there any discussion on greening the refinancing operations during the strategy review process? Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, first of all, on your question on green CELTROs. So, of course, in the work stream, we had a work stream that looked into the relationship between climate change and monetary policy. A number of possible measures and modifications of our operational framework were looked into. And this initially included some of the measures that you mentioned. But in terms of the actual action plan, the governing council decided to focus particularly on the issue of disclosures because this can have a very beneficial impact also on sustainable finance by increasing the transparency of the market and sort of openness about where climate exposures and climate risks are. And secondly, by focusing on both the collateral system, which of course is part of our lending operations and the corporate sector purchase program. So, in the context of our existing programs, rather than setting up new programs which of course also in the context of our price stability objective at this point would not be granted. So, of sort of green asset purchase program again, basically it's the same answer. It was seen as more important to actually look into our existing corporate sector purchase program, where, as you may have seen from the action plan. We'll have a work stream looking into the issue of market neutrality market efficiency and how that may lead to sort of alternative benchmarks for for our purchase programs. Thank you. Thank you. We've got the next question coming up from Mr. Mauricio Vargas from Greenpeace. Hello. Hello, we can hear you. Hello, can you hear me. Yes, sir, we can. Yes. Hello. Hello. I can't hear you. Maybe that's a technical problem. That's strange. We can hear you and see you very well. Maybe we will try to sort out this technical problem. And continue with the next speaker. And we'll try again to to upgrade you at a later stage to hear your question. So we will take the next question for now. This next question comes from Ms. Alessia del Vasto from Positive Money again. Hello. Hi, I hope you can hear me and see me. Yes, we can. Okay, great. Hi, again, it's Alessia del Vasto from Positive Money Europe. So, as an organization, of course, we recognize the importance of setting inflation target to percent right now. But, well, unfortunately, this BS constantly missed the target and the past year. So, we were wondering whether, well, if this would be continuous to struggle with, with reaching the inflation target with conceder introducing new instruments, new policy tools such as helicopter money. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you very much for your for your question. I mean, at a general point, I mean, the statement does explicitly say that obviously, not only did we look into the existing instruments and sort of confirmed that they are effective. I think they have contributed to avoiding risks of deflation and supporting the economy and the reflation of the economy. But also, if necessary, the governing council, as it has always done over the past years, will of course consider other tools if appropriate to achieve its inflation target. And of course, that's where sort of the commitment to particularly in response to negative shocks to have an especially forceful and persistent response and action is important. That's where that is backed up by this commitment to use other instruments. This specific example of money drops, of course, there, it very much depends on the details, but we didn't look in as part of the strategy route into the details and the parameters of particular alternative instruments. This was seen as part of sort of the stance discussion rather than the strategy discussion. And of course, particularly money drops in some variants as a number of legal and economic questions and also interact with fiscal policy, which would raise concerns. But in terms of the general stance, the governing council is open to consider alternative instruments. Thank you. We're going to see if we have anyone else who'd like to ask a question. Please feel free to raise your electronic hands now. And then when you've raised your hand, I'll be able to pull you out and my colleagues will be able to upgrade you so you can take the floor. We have one more question from Edward a la Costa. Also from positive money, I believe. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. That's great. Thank you. I'm out with a la Costa from positive money Europe, and I have a question on the public. So recently from May 21st to July 2nd of this year, the Bank of England has opened a consultation on options for greening is corporate bond purchase scheme. The Bank will implement its new approach on the matter on the front court on the fourth quarter of 2021. And in the past months, President Lagarde has affirmed the ECB intense to increase the involvement of the public. And today you have confirmed this by highlighting the success of the ECB and events. I did the large participation to the scheme and to the consultation on the on the digital euro have shown society's great interest in being involved in the civil decision. So my question would be, would the ECB consider a consultation on the corporate sector purchase program to improve its engagement with the public. Thank you. Thank you very much for your question. I mean, in the press release and the, the annex which consists of the action plan know the various elements and also the timeline of the various areas in which we as a central bank will take into account climate change considerations in our strategy are very much laid out. At the same time, and this is also has been also made very clear again in the statement, the governing council has indeed committed to have a regular exchange and outreach with civil society with the general public. And of course, I think differently from what we had over the past year, it should not only be about listening but also about explaining and interacting and whether this type of exchange will be explicit in terms of on the specific program. I mean that's something that at this point I can't really say but for sure, there will be interaction on on the various aspects of the action plan. Thank you very much. And it seems that we can try again with Maurizio Vargas from Greenpeace. Please bear with us and you should be upgraded shortly. Hello, can you not hear me. Yes. Okay, great. Well, thank you, Mr. Smith for for your presentation and just let me comment that from my point of view, the strategy strategy at least related to your climate plans don't seem to be very ambitious to me. But perhaps you can convince me otherwise so I'm really excited and I have two questions. The first question is, what is the concrete implication of the new climate strategy that you proposed. I mean, you provided a plan but I think it's, it's quite vague. No, so therefore, for example, it would be nice to know, for instance, what concrete changes the strategy will be for for your CSPP portfolio. So could you elaborate a little bit on the potential changes we might see. And the other question I have is, why haven't you taken any concrete actions yet. I mean, you mentioned the urgency of the climate crisis, but your plans, like your timetable doesn't seem to be very ambitious. Neither so. Why haven't we seen any concrete results. And therefore, a third question from from a kind of precautionary perspective, wouldn't it be necessary to end at least some support for very carbon intensive companies right now. No, until you have a detailed plan. So thank you and happy to listen to your answers. Thank you very much for this question. I mean, I would back to differ and sort of claim that the action plan that the governing council has decided on is quite ambitious. It's clear sort of timeline and deliverables. What's of course true is that still a lot of work needs to be done in order to take some of the concrete actions that you seem to to adjust. And of course, I should also emphasize that some of those actions also depend on the progress that is being made at the European level, no, in terms of the various initiatives that the EU has taken. We're not acting in isolation. But if you look at, first of all, the timeline, which is, no, ultimately within a four year period but there's two, two steps, but also the breadth of the actions. Then I think we compare very favorable to any other central bank in terms of the ambition that we have in terms of concrete actions and quick wins. And I remind you that we are already have already taken some some actions. No, for example, in terms of including sustainability link bonds in our asset purchase program. I think we have announced that we will disclose not the climate risks in our non monetary policy portfolio and probably one of the first actions that may follow relatively in the first part of this this timeline will be to do the same for for our portfolio. So it's not just words, we actually are also following up and acting. And I believe it is sort of a wide ranging action plan that covers, of course, our core the core of our business which is know how can we better understand the impact of climate change on our mandate to achieve price stability, but also know our risk assessment I mean part of the action plan, for example, is also to examine and investigate and make sure that credit rating agencies have the relevant methodologies to take into account climate change risk so there's a catalytic role here that the bank ECB wants to wants to play. But finally, then we also looking at what I think are probably the most important parts of our operational framework that is the corporate sector purchase program and our collateral framework. In terms of your last question, I mean, should you already exclude and I mean this is again it will be subject of what is it line nine of the of the of the action plan point nine. Obviously, that that is actually the most effective way of in terms of reducing climate change risk, because many of those those comments will actually have to be some of the drivers of change we hope. So extreme decisions like like that may not be the most optimal. Thank you for that Frank. We have the next question from Mr Roger Casale from the Europe peoples forum. This is just a kind reminder to please lower your electronic hand after taking the floor so that we can see if you'd like to take the floor again and an encouragement for everybody to raise their electronic hands and take the floor. Thank you very much. I think you can hear me I'm not sure you can see me sorry. We can hear you. Okay, so. Well, thank you again. And thank you also for in the earlier presentation, both in the question and the answers for the discussion around the engagement of citizens and civil society and drawing up the strategic plan. I think all of us who are engaged in this enterprise of promoting citizen participation. Something that we focus on at Europe's peoples forum are very well aware that it's easy thing to talk about and it's a difficult thing to do. So, I wonder if you could comment on the on the challenges and the difficulties that you faced in reaching out to civil society and citizens in particular. As you have learned from how you went about doing that, that you would want to apply in relation to how you conduct future consultations and engagement of citizens. There's going to be another phase of the consultation and that's very welcome. I'm sure you agree that it's very valuable information that comes about from the engagement with citizens and civil society. Perhaps as even and this would be my second question. The thought in your mind that it would be good to put such consultations on a more permanent basis. Thank you for your question and particularly on the last suggestion I mean I will just take it as a as a as a useful suggestion. I mean in terms of our experience in reaching out to various parts of society in the euro area. Of course, I mean the main the first thing that comes to your mind about what are the challenges and the difficulties for an institution European institution like the ECB is that of course the audience are very diverse in a number of ways, but first and foremost in terms of language and culture. No, I mean, our union is is is is is about unity is diversity. And so to ensure that sort of that diversity is is acknowledged and that we can reach out to to the different parts of the society. I mean is is a challenge, even bigger challenge than I would say in a national environment. Fortunately, we are a, not only an ECB here in Frankfurt but also a system the euro system of national central banks. And I mean it's it's obvious that the NCB's the national central banks will play have played will continue to play a key role in this outreach to to local audience. I mean our at the ECB of course our comparative advantage is to to reach out to pan European civil society organizations like yours to the European Parliament to no other European institutions, and of course more generally through through our communication on our website, but an important role clearly has to be played by the national central banks. And so they are of course very much on board on this commitment to to have more regular outreach programs with with citizens. I mean the other challenge I would sort of highlight and I think I already mentioned it in the introductory Q&A is comes from this diversity but but is also more general about know the difficulties to to reach out to citizens in a sort of a direct clear coherent easily accessible fashion. So what we learned is that actually the knowledge of the ECB of the central bank of the euro is not very great and so we need to really make more efforts in in explaining really what we are about. And so that's an important another important challenge that hopefully in the coming months and years, we will try to, we will try to to address. These are probably the two to do the two most important challenges that come to my mind. Thank you very much Frank. I can see that we have the next question from Mark Beckman also from positive money. Can just confirm if you hear me well. Yes, we can. Thanks a lot. I just wanted to come back to the last question actually on citizen engagement because we as positive money have been organizing a big outreach project called the European Citizens Bank where you built a platform similar to the conference on the future of the European Union, where we put up content on the monetary policy issues where we organized webinars where citizens could learn about current debates and very organized citizen assemblies where we drew citizens into a one day two day workshop and let them discuss these issues. And so we've been doing that project in several countries and some countries are still to come and be assembling the recommendations that citizens formulate in these assemblies together and so our question would be, if you are in the spirit of your commitment to public engagement, the citizens would be interested in meeting with the citizens who came up with these recommendations and maybe to have a session where we can compare and contrast what the citizens in our outreach program have come up with and maybe the outcome of the new strategic review that you now finalized. Thanks. Thank you. Of course we are aware of your initiative and particularly our communications department very much sort of follows what is going on and I would say that it's very important to have those initiatives because basically I think it can help better understand what the ECB, what monetary policy is about and of course subject to sort of what the communications department is doing. I'm sure we would be happy to interact and to contribute where we can. Thank you. This is just to let you know that we have got a little bit more time in case anyone else would like to take the floor please raise your electronic hands now. Otherwise allow me to take the floor Frank and ask a question. Seeing as the last review was such a long time ago. Do we already know when the next review is going to take place. Yes, in the sense that the governing council in its statement indeed also announced that from now on, it will periodically assess its monetary policy strategy and so initiatives for future ideas and so on will be very useful as as an input for these future assessments and it has announced that sort of the next sort of meeting point will be in 2025 so in about expected to be in 2025 so in about four years time and we very much hope. This is very much in the spirit of continuing this conversation about what we as a central bank are about and how we go about in achieving price stability and achieving the mandate in the best way for the well being of citizens in the new area. Thank you. I can see that we do have one last question and this question comes from Mr Mauricio Vargas from Greenpeace again. Okay, yeah well I take advantage of the chance to ask a second question. It's of course related to your climate action plan and there's another thing which I think we made very unclear and would be very happy if you could help me to understand what's meant with the following sentence in when it comes to the CSPP, the ECB or you are writing that corporates have to be aligned with at minimum EU legislation implementing the Paris Agreement through climate change related metrics or and that's what I really don't understand commitments of the issuers to such goals. I think it's really a good thing that you refer to EU legislation and the Paris Agreement, but I totally don't understand why you implement a sentence racing and on the same level you accept commitment of the issue itself to do to such goals. So what's the meaning of the second part of the sentence? Yeah I'm not sure. I understand sort of the subtleties of those two parts, but I mean the sort of idea in general terms is indeed to make sort of commitments of some of the issuers to do an implementation to the EU legislation that is related to the Paris Agreement to make that sort of an eligibility criteria. Now the way in which one does that again needs to be discussed. No, is it, and again this is will also be sort of a function of making sure there is an awful transition period, but sort of the general idea is really to provide incentives to issuers to basically commit or to align their own plans with respect to climate change with the EU legislation implementing the Paris Court. Thank you very much Frank. I can see that we don't have any more questions so with that I would like to close this seminar and thank you all very much for participating. Thanks to you and your active and lively contributions. We had a very engaging seminar and I'd also like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much to you Frank for taking the time out of your day to explain the new strategy and what it's all about. As usual, we are very interested in hearing your feedback. So if you have one moment will be posting a link to a survey in the chat function. And it should take about two or three minutes to fill out and it would really help us to improve the way we structure these seminars better and to tailor the more tool towards your needs. So we would really appreciate if you could fill out the survey and otherwise there isn't much left for me to say other than to wish you a lovely afternoon and hope for you a nice summer break. If you'd like to get in touch with us in the meantime, please do so by sending us an email at civilsociety at ecb.europa.eu. Thank you very much and have a lovely afternoon.


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Okay, so I'm here today to tell you about an exciting frontier at the intersection of neuroscience and computer science Now I suspect that when many of you think about neuroscience the first things that come to mind are Medical applications mental disorders pharmaceuticals, but what I'm going to try and argue today is that the stakes are much greater in the year 2015 so neuroscience is the study of the brain as a mechanism and throughout history We've sought to rationalize and understand the brain in the mind in terms of our current technology So in the era of Descartes we used hydraulic analogies animating fluids that would move the body in the era of Freud esteem Pressure building up in the psyche in the area of radio We started to talk about channels and communication now in the era of the computer were surrounded by computers So it's natural for us to use the metaphor of the computer So we talk about networks in the brain We talk about computations performed by neuronal circuits But the difference is that this isn't just a metaphor and that's because computer science Gives us formal mathematical tools for reasoning about information processing systems So we have in computer science a key notion of an algorithm a separation of the algorithm Which is what you're computing from the implementation, which is how you're computing it So the same equivalence that lets us write code for a supercomputer and for a cell phone Also lets us contemplate writing software for very different kinds of hardware in particular biological hardware and seeing through this lens The brain is a amazingly fascinating and complex computer So there's on the order of a hundred billion neurons in the brain and on the order of a hundred trillion connections in between them called Synapses and the amazing thing about the brain is it can do all kinds of things that computers for all of their sophistication are bad at But the problem isn't that we lack the computational power Increasingly we have enormous computational resources available to us on this planet The NSA has a zettabyte of storage in Utah Google has countless data centers that crunch millions of hours of video every day Sheer computational power isn't the problem. The problem is that we don't know the algorithms We don't know the software of the brain, but it turns out that already Labs around the world including my own lab have started building algorithms that are inspired by the brain It turns out these are tremendously economically valuable even though they're very primitive So private industry in the last two years alone has poured billions of dollars into studying biologically inspired Computing but we're very far from actually still matching the power of the brain and to go that next step What I argue is that we need to actually go back to the brain and Reverse engineer the brain to figure out those pieces of those algorithms of that software and that hardware that we're missing So we have to study the natural system and then build artificial systems that work the same way and it turns out that in 2015 there's never been a better time to study the brain So we have advanced electrophysiological tools. So this is basically wire-tapping the brain So driven by silicon micro machining and nano fabrication technologies We can now put hundreds to thousands of electrodes in the brain literally wire-tapping the activity of cells And then there's also been a renaissance in imaging so we can insert genes for fluorescent proteins that make neurons glow when they're active and this lets us literally watch a thought In a living brain. So right now you're watching Over on the right a rat experiencing a three-dimensional object and you can see the cells lighting up in real time Likewise, we also now have genetic tools for manipulating not just recording But manipulating the activity of circuits in the brain so we can perturb them and see how they work so this is a picture was taken by Feng Zhang a colleague at MIT and Basically what this lets you do is you shine light on the cells and they either turn on or turn off so literally we control neural circuits at the flip of a light switch and then more recently and and sort of on the cutting edge and More speculative cutting edge We also have this new technology or new frontier called connectomics where we can thinly slice the brain and then Actually trace out the wiring diagram across many many slices So this was an image created by a colleague down the hall from me Jeff Lickman at Harvard And what this lets us do this is just one small piece of the brain that's been reconstructed But you could imagine that this wiring that the entire wiring diagram is an enormous enormous corpus of data So we can now begin to contemplate having the function of the brain the behavior being able to perturb its activity And then also having the wire diagram now the stakes of this can't be underestimated So one obvious thing is that there are many disorders diseases that we can contemplate approaching once we understand the software of the brain So many diseases don't have a genetic or anatomical smoking gun They seem to be errors in the software of the brain and if we understand the software of the brain We can start to think about how we might start to correct some of these problems But even beyond that we can imagine a world where if we can recreate the abilities of the brain We can start having machines do things for us. So drive our cars We can have machines that can diagnose our medical images. We can have machines that free us from labor You think about many of the jobs in the world that basically require a working brain These are things that we can start to replace and augment with machines now This is going to be an enormous multidisciplinary effort. It's going to take Biologists computer scientists neuroscientists chemists. It will also take ethicists It will take policy makers for us to really navigate this new frontier of possibilities That neuroscience computer science make possible. Thank you


For your entertainment and pleasure, here is our Miss Brooks starring Eve Arden It's time once again for another comedy episode of our Miss Brooks under the direction of Al Lewis But first a recent news announcement gave added proof to the old saying. It's a small world In fact, it's even smaller than we thought The army map service using an improved way of measuring the equatorial radius of the earth found that it's exactly 420 feet shorter than previously figured But the earth is shrinking in another sense, too The telegraph, radio, telephone, all the improved methods of communication have made it pretty small We get all the news from around the world almost as it happens And there's more understanding in a world where nations and people can compare notes, ask questions, exchange information Our servicemen are an important part of this international gab fest They're right on the spot in a lot of different countries where they have a chance to talk to the people Get their viewpoints and give them ours One of the most effective weapons they carry is truth Before we can have agreement between nations, we have to have understanding between people That's part of the assignment we give to our ambassadors in uniform. Remember a country is known By its people. What people think of your country depends on you Well, for many of us the early morning hours aren't the most cheerful time of the day So it is with our miss Brooks who teaches English at Madison High School Fortunately, however, by the time we've had our second cup of coffee Most of us feel a good deal better. How true that is I always feel quite a bit better after my second cup of coffee, which I have at 7 30 in the evening But when some extremely fortunate occurrence is impending I can even be cheerful at breakfast That was the case last Friday when I joined my landlady in the dinette. Oh, what a beautiful morning Oh, what a beautiful day My you're in a good humor this morning, Tommy. It's brandy here. You're singing like this. Thanks, Mrs. Davis I've got a wonderful feeling everything's going my way And it's such a nice song too the beautiful blue Danube Rouses have always been my favorite the trousers mine, too.  When was that, Mrs. Davis? The day you found out that Mr. Conklin had to stay in bed with the flu I've got even better news than that today. You mean Mr. Conklin's resigned? Please, Mrs. Davis. Let's not wish for the moon But I did hear that Ms. Enright is leaving school for the rest of the semester She is? Yes, it seems her spinster sister is ill-upstate So Ms. Enright's gotten the leave of absence and she's going up to nurse her You mean Ms. Enright's going to nurse her spinster sister for the rest of the semester? Yes Oh, she'll nurse to spinster sister for the rest of the semester and the way it will go Oh, forgive me, Mrs. Davis. I can't get that blue danube out of my head Well, I know Daisy Enright's always been a rival of yours, Connie So I can't blame you for being happy about her going This leaves you a clear field with Mr. Boynton, doesn't it? Exactly Now there's nothing between Mr. Boynton and me except Mr. Boynton But Mrs. Davis, you don't seem so enthusiastic about the news Frankly, I'm not Ms. Enright's been conducting the course in Red Cross First Aid I've been taking three nights a week Well, cheer up, Mrs. Davis Even if the course has discontinued, you can take it again next season But I was hoping to get some practical experience, Connie Oh, that's Walter Denton to drive me to school Be right with you, Walter If you want first aid, you can help me If you want first aid experience, Mrs. Davis, why don't you come out to the car and watch us take off Take off? Yes, the way Walter starts that jalopy, it's ten to one I'll bang my head on the windshield On our way, let's have a nice smooth ride to school, Walter How came, Ms. Frux? Say, I'm sorry you banged your head on the windshield when we started Oh, forget it It's only a flesh wound Just try to control your tendency to speed, won't you? Yeah, I'll try, but it's awfully difficult on a beautiful day like today I think I know how you feel, Walter I'm rather related, too And I'll bet our joy stems from the same source The imminent departure of one Daisy Enright I couldn't be any happier if two Daisy Enrights were leaving I mean, Ms. Enright's a very good teacher, Walter Why should you be happy to see her go?   She bandaged my face But with six yards of sterile gauze She could have used more, but my dad had nine yards wrapped around him Your house must have looked like an Arab settlement Well, with Ms. Enright leaving, they'll probably discontinue the class until next year anyhow But surely you've had similar experiences to mine Mrs. Davis takes the same course, doesn't she practice on you? No, Walter, luckily I've been out a good deal of the time Mrs. Davis does all her first aid practicing on our next door neighbor Oh, Mrs. Landfield? That's right, Limpie Landfield, we call her Walter drove you to school today? Yes, Harriet, he'll be along in a minute Oh, you certainly look radiant this morning, Ms. Brooks What's the reason for the big smile? I just told you Walter drove me to school, Harriet I always smile when I get out of his car alive Whatever the reason, I'm glad you're so cheerful, Ms. Brooks Thank you, Harriet Oh, before I forget, Daddy wants to see you in his office immediately Have you any idea what he wants to see me about? No, but he sounded even more urgent than usual You better get right on in, Ms. Brooks Very well, Harriet, I'll see you in class Good luck, Ms. Brooks Enzo Uh, you wanted to see me, Mr. Counseling I could answer more truthfully if you rephrased the question There's something about which you must see me That's better Sit down, please Now, I don't know whether or not you're aware of it But our school is about to suffer a grievous loss Ms. Enright is leaving I know, it's terrible Please try to control your sobs Since her sister is ailing, I've granted Ms. Enright a leave of absence effective at once You see, there's no one else to take care of the poor creature So Ms. Enright will have to nurse her spince to sister for the rest of the semester Exactly, Ms. Brooks Believe me, it is with deep regret that I'll bid farewell to Ms. Enright She embodies all those qualities I most esteem in a teacher She's very capable, Mr. Counseling, and I'm sure that she... She's more than capable, Ms. Brooks When Ms. Enright goes, I can't help feeling that some part of our school is going with her Well, we shouldn't begrudge her a few pencils and erases I mean, she'll be back in the fall, Mr. Conklin I sincerely hope so Now then, since it is too late in the season to hire outside help This vacancy must be filled by other members of our faculty assuming additional duties I think I just heard the school bell, Mr. Conklin, so if you'll excuse me There was no bell, Ms. Brooks But although her classes will be taken over by Mr. Chalmers Ms. Enright leaves another most important post to be filled Namely, the Red Cross first aid course she conducted three nights a week There goes that bell again Be seated, Ms. Brooks In mentioning this post to you, I must remind you that in spite of the high honor that goes with the office There is absolutely no financial recompense whatsoever That bell is getting louder every minute Look, Mr. Conklin, it's been years since I got my certificate in first aid Since the Red Cross, like Madison High itself, is run on a purely democratic basis One may only serve it by exercising one's own free choice to serve It's purely voluntary But how do you know I'll volunteer, Mr. Conklin? Ms. Brooks Do you have a large bank account? I know, sir And is teaching the only profession with which you're familiar? That's right, sir And would you like to continue to make a living in this profession, Ms. Brooks? Certainly, sir Well then I hereby exercise my own free democratic voluntary choice of saying yes Martin will continue in just a moment But first, if you were a millionaire and changed all the money you owned into single-dollar bills And pressed those bills together as tightly as you could You couldn't compress them into a single solitary tree A tree takes years to grow and mature And no amount of money can buy that That's why even if you're a millionaire, you can't afford a forest fire On the other hand, even if you don't have a million in the bank You can still afford the moment or two it takes to make sure a cigarette or matchstick is fully extinguished Before you toss it away And no one is so poor he can't afford that little bit of effort that dousing a campfire requires Be careful whenever you're in or around a forest area Help prevent forest fires I had to take over Daisy Enright's first aid course Didn't help my appetite any Nevertheless, when lunchtime came I went to the school cafeteria Baited a table with meatloaf And sat down to wait for Mr. Boynton But as I toyed with my salad It was Ms. Enright's voice that broke in on my reverie Well, Ms. Brooks, as I live and breathe Two faults that are easily remedied You doing, darling?  What do you mean again?  Just take it easy, darling We've all got our troubles Look!  Not at all I can't digest this food anyway Ms. Brooks, I understand that you've been requested to complete my first aid cause Or is the word volunteered? The word is railroaded What I can't figure out is why Mr. Conklin picked on me Oh, you were a natural for the job, my dear Otherwise I would never have recommended you You recommended me Oh, dear, now the cat is out of the bag, isn't it? I don't blame you for being self-conscious Ms. Brooks Are you inferring? If the bag fits, get back in it You're really going out in the blaze of infamy, aren't you? Going out? Oh, but that's what I sat down to tell you, darling I'm not going anyplace My sister has decided to come down here and live with me Isn't that a relief? With such a relief, I may kill myself Well, at least I won't have to conduct those classes of yours But you will, darling That's one of the provisions I made when I agreed to stay I told Mr. Conklin that I'd have to spend all my free time with my sister And he said that he didn't mind a bit As long as you took over for me As one English teacher to another, Ms. Henright I'd just like to say that I am the one who has been took over I just don't think it's fair for you to- Good afternoon, ladies I hope I'm not interrupting anything Oh, no, not a thing, Mr. Boyden The books were speaking Why don't you sit down? Thanks, Ms. Henright Oh, that food you've got looks very appetizing, Mr. Boyden Oh, yes, I thought I'd take a whirl at the pot roast today But I kept this plate of meatloaf covered for you, Mr. Boyden Oh, I can probably handle them both and start Oh, my, that roast looks yummy And so does the meatloaf Would you care to try one of the other, Ms. Henright? Why don't you try both, Ms. Henright? You can feed one of your faces and I'll feed the other I, uh, I think Ms. Brooks is a trifle miffed Because she's going to have to take over some of my duties Oh, yes, I heard you were leaving, Ms. Henright When are you going? Surprise, surprise! I'm not going at all, Mr. Boyden You're not? Well, that is a pleasant bit of news Did you hear that, Ms. Brooks, Ms. Henright staying on? She's not leaving at all, isn't that just splendid?  Oh, oh, I don't know One can't look after one's sister every night Now can one If one doesn't go out until one's asked, one can I really must excuse me, I've got several things to do Oh, do you have to go so soon, Ms. Brooks? I'm afraid I do, Mr. Boyden, here's your check for the meatloaf Oh, thank you, Ms. Brooks, but where, well, where is your, uh... I've paid my check, Mr. Boyden Oh, well, so long Oh, darling, I'd like to remind you that I'm coming over to your house tonight to brush you up on the first aid course It was Mr. Conklin's idea What? As a matter of fact, he's coming along with me But I didn't plan on... He said we'd be there at eight sharp, Ms. Brooks, so you'd better be ready at that time You know, this first aid course is Mr. Conklin's pet project Sort of like Mr. Boyden is to certain other members of the faculty If you know what I mean, dear Mr. Boyden Huh? I guess it's safe to leave him here for a few minutes Well, if the emperor has spoken, I guess I'll see you tonight, Ms. Enry Goodbye, Mr. Boyden Goodbye, Ms. Brooks Oh, uh, dear, from the back, those calories show like mad If I could plead manslaughter, I'd kill her From all the unjust tyrannical... I'll take it easy, Ms. Brooks You know what, talking to yourself is the first sign of, don't you? Yes, Walter, but I don't care Oh, things can't be that terrible Tell Uncle Walt what's the matter It's pretty bad, Uncle Ms. Enry just told me that she and Mr. Conklin are coming over to my place tonight To brush me up on her first aid course What's so bad about that? This is a chance to kill two of your favorite birds with one stone If you're gonna show them what you remember from your first aid experience You'll get a chance to not only clobber, Ms. Enry But to show Mr. Conklin that you're totally unfit to take over the job Well, Ms. Brooks, what do you think of the scheme? Walter, if we were in France, I'd kiss you on both cheeks and give you the legion of honor Hello, Mr. Conklin, Ms. Enry Come in, won't you? Thank you Just leave your coats and heads out here A hat out here Thank you, darling Well, are you all prepared for your refresher course? I really don't think it'll be necessary, Ms. Enry You see, I've been rereading my manual And you'd be surprised how quickly the things I'd learned came back to me Well, I'm delighted to hear that, Ms. Brooks But if you're going to instruct others, I'd like to see some practical demonstration of this knowledge Of course, sir. Just follow me into the living room, please As you can see, I've moved most of the furniture into one corner of the room And I've got the splints, bandages, and adhesive already Excellent Now then, let's get right to business We will suppose that our subject has sustained a fractured elbow and a broken ankle Let's make it two broken ankles Very well, two broken ankles Now then, lie down, Ms. Brooks Yes, sir. Then we can... Wait a minute. Why should I lie down? If someone had sustained two broken ankles and a fractured elbow Is it too unreasonable to assume she'd be lying down? No, sir, but the wrong bones are being broken That is, I want to show you what I know about first aid Ms. Enright's the one who must lie down Oh, you want me to pretend I've been through an accident? Believe me, it's typecasting Just crumple, dear. The rug is spotless so far Let's get on with it. Do as she says, Ms. Enright Oh, very well Now, we'll assume that Ms. Enright has been in an automobile accident And besides having both arms broken, she's in an acute state of shock Well, how do I react? As if Mr. Boyden finally asked you for a date Your job is to kneel by her side and take care of the arm This silk sleeve seems to be covering up the injury This is a brand new dress Please, what do you want to be? Neat or cured? Now, it's obvious from the looks of this arm that it's badly injured Where my fingers touch, it's all black and blue See, Mr. Conklin? Where? Where is it black and blue? Ouch! Right there Now, hand me that cat's bottle, please, Mr. Conklin Well, here you are, but what's it for? Realism This was a pretty bad accident, remember? It's broke, you're ruining my dress Quiet, you're in a state of shock Now we'll start bandaging the arm First, I put the splint gently against the skin Ouch! Then I start the roller bandage here Now I wrap the gauze with one arm this way Go on Then I put the other arm through and tie the bandage this way Now I reverse the process, again bringing the other arm through the bandage And wrapping it securely Now what? Now if someone will untie my arms, I'll continue Miss Brooks, can you or can you not tie a firm bandage? This splint was a bit too rough, Mr. Conklin But if Miss Enright will let me use one of her legs Now see here, Miss Brooks Now please, please cooperate, Miss Enright Stand up and let's see if Miss Brooks can tie a firm bandage on your leg Well, if you insist, Mr. Conklin, there Now then, Mr. Conklin, if you'll just stand nearby and hand me a few things Very well, very well First, please pass me the adhesive Here you are Now we'll take down your stocking, Miss Enright There, and wrap this adhesive nice and tight There But you don't put adhesive next to the skin First, the bandage must come You're so right, darling Off you come, adhesive Oh, hand me a splint, please, Mr. Conklin Here The idea is to get a good steady support for the leg Around we go with the bandage, all around the splint Another bandage, please, Mr. Conklin Here's one Now we wrap this around the other one Now the adhesive, round and round and round There, how does that feel? Solid? Very solid Very solid Good grief, you've tied Miss Enright's leg to mine Heaven's sake I thought one of those legs had more wool on it than the other Bandage untied I'll have to tear this splint out first There's a big splinter right in my thumb Good, now for your next test, let's suppose that somebody's got a big splinter right in his thumb Oh, I'll get it Boynton, come on in I just dropped by to return a book I borrowed from Mrs. Davis Oh, you've got company Please join us, Mr. Boynton Good evening, Mr. Conklin, Miss Enright Say, what are you doing, having a three-legged race? Don't be funny, Boynton There has been an accident What's that on Miss Enright's dress? Oh, no It's a theology teacher who faints at the sight of cats I didn't faint, Miss Brooks I just slipped on this scatter rug Well, stop jabbering, everyone I've got to get this splinter removed Would you like me to probe, Mr. Conklin? Keep away from me, you angel of destruction Mr. Conklin, Daisy Enright's on the job I'll get it out for you in just a jiffy Now here's a nice clean pin Now give Daisy your thumb Come on, come to Daisy Down, Daisy, down, girl Here, here, Miss Enright Now please be careful Oh, there's nothing to it, Mr. Conklin There, it's out Say, that didn't hurt a bit It's remarkable, Miss Enright You know everyone should master first aid I've been thinking of taking that course myself You have? Yes, I'd like to sign up right now for the balance of the semester It's a deal Monday night at eight, I throw out the first bandage Over my limp carcass you do Miss Enright, I'll move heaven and earth if you'll take over your old course Oh, well, that won't be necessary, Mr. Conklin Now? She's halfway to heaven already Oh, well, Miss Enright There's just one question I'd like to ask you Yes, Miss Brooks? What sort of splint does one use after one cuts one's throat? Brooks returns in just a moment They say that Michelangelo, the artist was able to draw a perfect circle free hand You think that's easy, just try it sometime Anyhow, whenever he made a call on a friend and the friend was out, he used to leave a card with a perfect circle on it and everyone knew that Michelangelo had been there It's rather odd how friendship and circles seem to go together We talk about the family circle and the circle of friends That's probably why we think of the whole world as just an overgrown neighborhood In a neighborhood, we sometimes have misunderstandings and disagreements, but we work things out visiting over the back fence exchanging recipes and ideas helping someone with his garden Those all have their counterparts on the international scene Right now, the biggest visitors in the world are the American servicemen They're exchanging ideas with our neighbors in other countries and they're helping a lot of them to improve their own ways of life If our men in uniform can help promote better understanding between ourselves and other people, they can bring us closer to the time when there won't be any disagreements or un-neighborly attitudes Do your part in enlarging the circle of friendship Remember, a country is known by its people What people think of your country depends on you And now once again, here is our Miss Brooks Well, Mr. Conklin was so delighted at Miss Enright's decision to resume her first aid class that he insisted on treating her to an ice cream soda before taking her home So they were out of the house before I could reach her jugular vein That's when I got out my Red Cross manual If you're so interested in first aid, Mr. Boynton maybe we could practice a bit before your first lesson I'd love to, Miss Brooks Here's an interesting problem It deals with a back injury For want of a better subject let's just say I'm the injured party Now, you place your left arm around my shoulders Like this? Yes Then your right arm goes around my waist Like this? What does the book say we should do next? Never mind the book, add lib a little Our Miss Brooks, starring E. Barton is produced by Larry Byrne Written by Al Lewis from Arthur Allsburg with the music of Wilbur Hatch Mr. Conklin was played by Gail Gordon Others in tonight's cast were Jane Morgan, Dick Crenna Gloria McMillan and Mary Jane Croft Be with us again next week at this same time Please


So big news with our Baltimore Raven, starting off with Odell Beckham, Jr. who when you take the eye test and you look at Odell Beckham, Jr., you're like, nah, he don't look himself. We remember in that fade route, that goal line fade route against Joey Porter, Jr. with Joey Porter said he strapped his old behind up, which he did, but Odell Beckham, Jr. from jump. He lost that battle from the jump. From as soon as Lamar snapped the ball, Odell Beckham, Jr. had lost it. And even when he has the ball in his hands, when we seen him out there running, he just, to me, he just does not look himself yet. Hardball did talk about it a couple of days ago. He talked about how he feels like the ankle injury is slowing Odell Beckham, Jr. down. And Odell Beckham, Jr., he talked about it in yesterday's presser. He said, it's been tough. I've worked my butt off for a long time since that Super Bowl, just to have a small, small setback that you never saw coming in. It's just unfortunate. And he said, it never feels good when you're not at your very best. But he did say that he feels better this week. How much better? Hey, who knows? And I'm sure he'll be active for this game. But at the same time, I still feel the same way that I felt. And we talked about a couple of days ago with both him and Marcus Williams. If they not at least 90%, which it did not, in last week's game, it did not seem like either one was. I think they should sit. I honestly don't think they should really be out there like that. I think that they should rest until they're more healthy. Because I feel like that you could almost hurt the team more than you can help them at this point. And it's still early in the season. There's a lot of games to be played. And the guys that are your backups, essentially, they show that they can do it, that they are enough. Geno Stone, when it came to Marcus Williams, Rashal Bay, well, obviously nobody in that last game, but in games previous to that, Nelson Aguilore, maybe Rashal, it was Zay Flowers, Devon DuVernay, and you had Mark Andrews. So you can get it done. You got enough to move forward. And hey, you still got Laquan Treadwell. You can give him a shot, too.  With Odell Beckham, Jr., don't rush him, man. Don't rush him. In my opinion, I feel like he's being rushed, but we'll see what happens with him. Now, in other news, we just talked about OBJ. Now we got to talk about OJB, and that's Ojabo. And we know Ojabo has been out with the knee and ankle injuries. And John Hubbaugh spoke about it a couple of weeks ago, and he said that he has to make a decision whether he is going to have surgery or he's going to do the rehab route. And Ojabo spoke about it yesterday, he said that he's just rehabbing and hoping to be back out there. So looks like he is going to take the route of going through rehab. Now, I cannot say that I am the most hopeful on this. Now, I do hope that he comes back and he's healthy, but I don't have the most confidence in him being back with the Ravens this year, being back healthy with the Ravens this year. We'll see, we'll see. But with him having a double whammy knee and ankle injuries, I don't know, man. So we'll see, I'm hoping for the best. I'm hoping for the best with David Ojabo. So he can get out there and show why the Ravens, they took him with that second round pick last year because they could have made a lot of other decisions. But they said, oh, no, we know this guy, we see this guy, he went to Michigan, so my brother knows it, but no, he can play. And Hubbaugh talked about it a couple of days ago, oh yeah, he going to be a star in this league. So hopefully he can be back and he can get closer to being that star that a lot of people see in him. But we'll see how things go. Now, with practice yesterday, it was great because, David and Clowney, he came back to practice. Geno Stone, he had returned to practice too. And they said the only player that they didn't see practicing was Adafi away. And today, this morning, because the time is way different over there, this morning, same thing. Everybody was at practice. The only person who wasn't practicing who's on the active roster was Adafi away. And that's it. And Hubbaugh did talk about him. He said that with Adafi away, he's getting closer to practicing again. So just got to wait it out. Hey, they didn't put him on injured reserve. So there's that. So he come back anytime. But Adafi away, he's getting there. So eventually one day, hey, Adafi, we miss you sitting that edge, man. Jadavian Clowney can't do it by himself.  But anyway, Keaton Mitchell, who we've been wondering about, Hubbaugh was asked about him today. And he said that he could possibly be affected in this game. So he might get activated. Me personally, I don't think he will. But hey, if he does, great. Again, if Keaton Mitchell does get activated though, please temper your expectations with Keaton Mitchell because he's not going to be out there from jumping, be this starter, get all these million carries and whatnot. So just, I know we were all excited for him in preseason. I know I sure was. But we got to make sure we have realistic expectations for whenever he does finally play for the Baltimore Ravens, whenever that day is. And with Geno Stone, he wasn't a full participant in yesterday's practice. I'm not sure if he was today or not. But again, the Ravens, they are, they're pretty healthy. Pretty healthy. So that is a good thing. Again, Morgan Moses, Pat McCarty, they were practicing too. So Ravens are, they getting a lot of guys back. Well, Tyus Bowser, still waiting. Still waiting on it. So it could be one of those any day things now. But they got a big game against these Tennessee Titans coming up in a couple of days at 9.30 a.m. Eastern time. So y'all be on the lookout for that. Got to wake up a little extra early. And if you're on the West Coast, you got to wake up at 6.30. Ooh, and if you in another country, over, you know, the times are different everywhere. Now, before we get out of here, I just want to make sure that all of y'all are good. I hope all of y'all are good. I hope all of y'all are in good spirits. There's a lot going on right now in the world as, I mean, it always is. So a lot of stuff is just, it's not a surprise. A lot of stuff, this stuff was foretold that it was going to happen, but I just hope that all of y'all are in a good headspace. That all y'all are doing good. They did declare a state of emergency here in Florida for the entire state of Florida. So that's how we're doing right now. But I hope that y'all are really, really good, man. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all so much. I hope y'all have an amazing, amazing Friday, Saturday, Monday through Friday, whenever you are. I hope you're having a great time. I love you so much. I appreciate you so much. I hope that everything today and every day goes even better than you expected to, even better than you hoped that it does. I love y'all.  Y'all be good to yourselves and we out.


think take away civil engagement lives here it's condo insider time Thursday three o'clock I think we started a couple minutes late today but we were having a vibrant discussion about one of our programs provided by the Honolulu Police Department called the Honolulu Citizens Police Academy go online check it out but it's a 13-week course for the public about the challenges of being a police officer and I send out my greatest respect for our men in blue and the other first responders because I can tell you I'm in my 11th or 12th week now of doing this course and I can tell you they have a very tough job so thanks to our first responders and then we have our second responder here Nalaan the attorney who is well known in our industry and an expert on everything except maybe the Honolulu Citizens Police Academy will get you there and we want to talk about condo cannabis that's the issue of marijuana in condos and I would tell you to start this show when it gets down to people's rights nothing is simple there are so many F.A.M. butts ores and ores and complexities will do our best job to give you a balanced perspective condo cannabis but welcome back always good to see you give me a little one-minute summary of who you are so those who haven't seen the show before know more about you hello everyone my name is Nalaan always a pleasure to be back I'm a attorney with the law firm Damon Keeley on Cupchar Castered I practice condominium law and immigration law our firm offers food services to condominium associations community associations co-ops in Hawaii always a pleasure to talk about the condo issues about you know how people live in condo projects you know more smoothly and happily but before we get into the nitty gritty of the cannabis law and condos you and I are having a little discussion and beforehand that as if I'm correct on this we have a state law that allows use of medical marijuana under certain circumstances the federal law does not allow that correct and so we were talking about the issue of whether an immigrant here in Hawaii could get a medical marijuana card whether it be valid because they're not a state citizen what's your thoughts yeah so if if you're basically either a green card holder or holding a non-immigrant visa you know having gone through the naturalization process to become a US citizen then because marijuana is still listed as a controlled substance under the federal law it's illegal to use it in any way so even if you get you know under Hawaii law you get the medical you know user card you would still be running the risk of being subject to removal if you you know use marijuana so that's a very I think it's an unfortunate issue because there are people there especially like a children they have for example seizure they would need medical marijuana to treat their disease and unfortunately if they don't have the US citizenship they probably cannot use it well I guess this goes back to what I said there's a lot of gray areas under this and it's not so clear after all but you know we talk about the law really talks about cannabis not marijuana is there a difference what why do we use the word cannabis as a term they're basically the same thing just because in 2017 we passed the law basically revising all the terms that we use before we use marijuana but the new law basically says now from now on we'll use cannabis in place of marijuana so basically they're the same thing so the current law we have can you briefly summarize what I know there's gonna be some detailed discussion we're gonna have about condos and smoking and all that but generally what does the current law say so if you are a qualifying patient and you have the medical need for marijuana and if you comply with the registration requirement then you you're allowed to use marijuana you know with adequate supply and you will be having affirmative defense for any prosecution regarding your usage of marijuana in Hawaii is it hard to get a medical marijuana card do you think or do you know or if you have a legitimate need I don't think it's gonna be difficult because you basically need the doctors to provide the you know certification for you and then you just go through a registration process with the state and it's fairly you know if you have the instruction it's not hard to do I think the issue is you really need you have to get the legitimate medical need instead of just for using for recreational use purpose but of course in other states right now I think at least a nice date plus DC be allow recreational use of cannabis as well but Hawaii as of now we only allow medical use now if a person had medical use for another state and they came here to Hawaii on vacation would they be able to buy for one of our local dispensaries no because we don't have a reciprocity policy here you have to have a legitimate you know Hawaii card which is called the 329 card because the statutory chapter 329 is regarding narcotics includes a you know a session regarding medical usage of marijuana so one thing that I think I should ask you about is that when you have the card I think you said the 329 card are you limited in quantities or and there's issue about having the actual plants himself in your apartment what are what are the basic criteria there yeah so you're only allowed adequate supply which is limited to I think 10 plants the maximum or four ounces of course you can you know there are still places you cannot use them for example you can't use it in a moving vehicle you cannot use on school grounds public park no public beach no and any common areas you know accessible to the public you cannot use it there I mean but if it's you know you have the card then you are allowed and you know to just that you know the limited to the adequate supply or you're allowed to use it and usage actually includes acquisition cultivation including growing you know on the card usually there's also a will specify what are the location where your plants will be grown so in a condo association for example the common areas it would be illegal yes for sure and we'll get into the apartment and Linai's and things in a minute you know it's interesting because I was taking this how those citizens police academy we had a class on illegal drugs which goes beyond marijuana it goes to all the opioids and all the rest of that stuff you read so much about but if I remember correctly and I have a bad memory out there so don't always quote me but my understanding is that if you had a problem the police do get calls about people having marijuana and they will go there and they will ask to see the medical marijuana card and it's my belief that the plants they have have to be registered they have to have a tag on them of some sort and that if either a they have more than 10 plants or be there's not a tag on the plants they will confiscate them and if they had 11 plants they confiscate all 11 plants not just the one excess plant so I think the people who use that substance and lawfully do so because they have a card just ought to check out the rules and condom bars that I be careful because people have rights if they have a medical card to possession of a reasonable amount or a necessary amount or whatever term you use they're allowed to have that which may include up to 10 plants based on our belief yeah and because the law enforcement officer have access to all the registration data you know through department health it's a 24-hour basic inquiry based if they make the inquiry they will be able to get all the information on your registration so well how about if you're a landlord you say I'm gonna rent my unit out I'm gonna rent it out to John Smith John Smith and John Doe get blamed for a lot of things you know they have a very big long rap sheet particularly John Doe I don't I don't think I've known someone sued as many times as John Doe but but the reality of it is so I rent my unit to John Doe and my rental agreement says no smoking can I evict him or cancel the lease because he smokes marijuana legally under the under this 329 card yes I mean basically the law is you have to give you know equal treatment no discrimination against you know medical marijuana smokers if you have a no smoking policy or treating you know the cigarette smokers and the medical marijuana smokers on equal footing then you're okay to do that but there is a wrinkle to that that's because the the fair housing law basically has a reasonable you know accommodation requirement there for a disabled person you need to afford them the opportunity you know for equal usage enjoyment of the housing first so for example if you want to evict that tenant and then the tenant turns around said you know I'm a disabled person I'm requesting for reasonable accommodation regarding this then you have to jump through the hoops you know the reasonable accommodation for housing compliance with the HCRC otherwise you could be facing a complaint you know within you know HCRC's jurisdiction for those out there HCRC stands for the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission which is the enforcement agency for all this but wouldn't I be able to say is I'm the landlord my example I'm not prohibiting from using marijuana he can surely ingest it by edibles or other methods I'm just saying no smoking because it's costly for me to clean the unit up after no smoking that makes sense because there are other ways to use marijuana you can do it by repurposing or ingesting it or you know things like that yeah I think one of the complications and and I was confiding with our producer here before the show that I went to a military college so I've lived a very sterile life when it comes to artificial drugs including marijuana so I'm not necessarily sure I'm the best person to understand all this but you know it seems to me that by saying edibles and of course edibles aren't clearly available today in Hawaii in the sense that I don't think they've been approved for distribution yet maybe some have but they're probably much scarcer than the plant itself for smoking so I guess that's another wrinkle on the reasonable accommodation issue I'm not expert on that because I know you know there are nine disciplines in Hawaii already but if you look at nationwide the trend is actually towards legalizing marijuana there was a poll down in 2017 was like 61% are in favor of legalizing marijuana basically right now I think you know most of the western coast nine states plus DC allows every all kinds of usage and then there's about 21 states allows medical marijuana usage and then there's another portion of states they allow some lesser you know they be allowed to use the extract so really because it's a 6.6 billion industry every seven out of ten dollars is going to the medical usage and then the rest of the three out of ten is going to you know recreational use so we'll see in the future you know which direction we're heading in Hawaii but there's been bills proposed before regarding workplace usage that was you know that didn't pass but for now I think for scooting purpose parental rights housing you need to you know be careful give you know equal protection like do not discriminate against the medical marijuana users okay we're gonna take a short break and come right back and talk about those people who use or smoke marijuana in the condo apartment and all the gray matter the surrounding all of that so we right back in one minute aloha in a shoe she had so many children she didn't know what to do she gave them some broth without any bread and kiss them all soundly and put them to bed hunger is a story we can end and it at feeding America org you can be the greatest you can be the best you can be the welcome back to condo insider with na-la prominent local lawyer talking about cannabis or marijuana in condos we are talking about it in general terms the law before the break and we want to get into what do boards or associations do when they believe they have a person who is smoking marijuana and it's becoming a problem I remind our viewers that they can always call our hotline and 808 374 2 0 1 4 if they have a question but let's clarify one thing on smoking did the law change regarding these electronic smoking devices yeah there was a lot passed earlier basically east grads they are also prohibited if there is a smoking ban they're treated as the same as grass smoking so now I have a condo I'm on the board I have neighbors calling me I think the guy and you know 101 is smoking grass and the smells bothering me and this is not right what do you say when you you're born you hear that so basically there are three steps you need to jump through the hopes you know the first one for course you have to verify whether this occupant is using marijuana for medical purpose and you can basically ask the you know user you know whether they possess you know the proper registration you know card the 329 card and then after you verify that then it really depends on whether your building is a no smoking building or not because we all know the laws already said in common areas of the project you cannot smoke right but the real problem lies within the individual units and you know some some projects the line eyes because usually it's not clear whether the line eyes consider you know part of the unit or if it could be also consider like a limited common elements I know there are different opinions among attorneys as to you know inside units usually it's clear that if the association wants to ban smoking inside units then you need a past bylaws amendment usually 67% ownership approvals required sometimes as to line eyes certain attorneys consider that as limited common as our common elements so that's prohibited but there are also you know areas where if the line eyes part of the units then you still need a 67% ownership approval as well and so how about boards that say well I'm just gonna make a house rule on private marijuana or smoking that general I mean that that's a risky approach but you know of course you have some theories like you know nuisance you know if it's to a certain degree that's creating a nuisance at the project then you have some basis there but still you know you think about it you know common interest properties private you know investment when you bought this project there's no such restriction if it's a lifetime you know smoker he invested in this project and this is his only home if he's not allowed to smoke inside the unit you are sort of taking you know a portion of his usage or enjoyment of his housing so there were bills proposed before in the legislature trying to lower in the percentage required to pass you know no smoking policies building wise inside units though those were really contested and ultimately those bills didn't pass so apparently this is I think is an issue subject to disputes you have any view that if they passed legitimately a bylaw amendment is 67% to make it a non-smoking building are the existing smokers grandfather that's a good question you know I think you know if the it's a bylaw amendment you know unless you know the the amendment has the grandfather in clause there I don't think he will automatically have the grant grandfathering you know if impact there I'm gonna say this but I don't remember the specific case but do remember being told this that there was actually a lawsuit on this matter the judge ruled you buying a condo you live by the rules you die by the rules the bylaws provided us supermajority 67% can amend and yes you have to stop smoking yeah and that the fact you're there already doesn't grandfather you with respect to the new rule adopted by the supermajority but I'm sure as time goes on and lawsuits continue they'll probably do new takes on that matter so so you have this thing with so you have this big concern of why is the Rights Commission interfering with this they labeled reasonable combination what do I say to the lady who's pregnant says you're affecting the health of my unborn child or the person that says I'm allergic to smoke or I don't want secondhand smoke because of all the health hazards what do you say to that person so definitely you need to do some balancing you know on case-by-case basis this is why we're just sharing information here we're not giving any substantive legal advice if you have a specific matter I think the best advice is to consult your attorney you know because every situation there are some you know different facts that could change of the analysis you know of course on the way hand under fair housing you have the you know obligation to provide reasonable accommodation for a disabled person if you know it's necessary for them to use marijuana for medical purpose but we also know you know the examples you gave of perfect examples where we need to take those into consideration if for the patient there is another alternative way to use medical marijuana and doesn't have to smoke it for example if he has this closed-universe vaporizing thing he can just limit the stuff within his unit without you know the smoke traveling everywhere or if he can install like a filter or like you know stuff to prevent the you know the the smoke traveling out of his unit then maybe that's the right way to go like a sorting out like alternative solutions here so the board can look at alternatives by saying look we want you to put in a vaporizing unit or a filter or we want to we're not telling you not to use marijuana we're just telling you not to smoke marijuana because of the fact that's having health consequences with other residents and try to find a balance or a common ground to make it work realizing oftentimes that doesn't work and you have to resort to some other legal means arbitration mediation maybe to resolve the dispute but I think words can't just ignore it if you have a resident or an owner saying you're affecting the health of my baby I don't think you can necessarily just ignore them I think you have to look for common ground and not just shine it on yeah the best of procedures actually to have a you know like a policy in place so you know if this kind of situation occurs what are the steps you're supposed to take under the law so that and then you follow the procedure to uniformly enforce it instead of you know oh this individual case you know I do it on this like the other one it could be a different standard then you were subject to selective enforcement or just unfair discrimination issues and that's where you could get into trouble yeah this question kind of came up in a different way at the Citizens Police Academy I've been attending because I did find out that police officers do get calls about the marijuana smoke and they will come and they will ask to see the medical marijuana card and I'll make sure that they have one that's still valid not expired and they'll also if they have plants are growing they'll make sure they don't exceed the number and that they're duly marked I think there's some marking requirement if you have those in your home for those plants and so that's another alternative if if you don't want to make a scene that you want someone to check it out but on the other side if you know that person has a medical marijuana card that's probably not a good idea to call the police because you're not gonna be able to do anything with respect to that so we're kind of getting the end of the show real quick what are the big risks if you don't do this right yeah you could be subject to housing claims you know followed with the HCRC you could also subject to liabilities arising from you know lawsuits and other challenges and you know I noticed this about all attorneys so so your advice is probably when you have this issue consult with your attorney yes well you know I have to say to our viewing audience that you know this is not clear there's a lot of gray areas on that but looking at the issue objectively establishing some written protocol or policies and how you'll handle the matter realizing you do have the right to ask for proof that they have a medical marijuana card you do have a right to suggest they use a filter or ingest it if the we call it noxious odor because that could be incense by the way or things don't align the interfere with the well-being and the quiet enjoyment of the other residents are all part of the program but it's such a gray area and somewhat a new area I would recommend reluctantly I recommend contact your lawyer but if you're contacting not a lot it's okay she's special she's young he does my show often and I appreciate her courtesy so thank you for being on the show and we appreciate the discussion of cannabis I'll use the official name and we want to thank all of you for watching condo inside of this week next week we're going to have the fire chief and he's going to talk about the new sprinkler law and all the newest resolution before the city council kind of after we thought we had this resolved saying that the fire department is is cheating on the agreed upon resolution but we'll get into that next week with my co-host Jane Sugimura tune in next Thursday three o'clock Jane Sugimura and our fire chief aloha