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The Electronic Sports League (ESL), one of the major e-sport organizations, has announced that it will make an anti-doping policy for its competition.
The decision was a result of a recent ESPN interview with a professional Counter-Strike player nicknamed Semphis, who openly admitted to him and his entire team using Adderall to boost their reactivity and attention to detail at a recent tournament.
Semphis gave a plastic recollection to the ESPN reporter about how the event went and how his teams’ discussion was influenced by them all being under the effect of Adderall. Despite the fact that suspicions of performance enhancing drugs among e-competitors are long-standing, this was the first open admission of the practice, with the laid back approach of Semphis suggesting that this is already staple practice in the scene.
Adderall is a drug made out of amphetamine compounds which is normally used to treat attention deficit disorders such as ADHD. It increases the focus, reactivity and attention to detail of the user; those who don’t suffer from attention deficit disorders receive a boost in these areas, which for professional gamers is especially useful in skill-based games.
The drug is not new to the world of sports, be them virtual or physical, with reports suggesting that it is one of the most abused drugs in baseball. Most disciplines allow the use of Adderall for athletes who suffer from attention deficit disorders.
The ESL has announced a partnership with Germany’s Nationale Anti Doping Agentur (NADA) to devise a policy on the use of stimulants during competitions. The organization also hinted towards talks with the World Anti Doping Agency on enforcing this. The first event to be tested for doping will be the ESL One Cologne in August, as the organization announced in a press statement:
“We will be administering the first PED [performance-enhancing drug] skin tests at ESL One Cologne this August, with a view to performing these tests at every Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One and ESL ESEA Pro League event thereafter as soon as the official PED policy is established and tournament rules updated accordingly.”
According to ESL officials, neither Semphis nor his teammates will face punishment for the reveal, as the event he was mentioning took place in March and there is no viable way of retroactive testing to prove their guilt, with Adderall traces vanishing from bloodstreams in the meanwhile.
Image Source: dailydot
