The Electronic Sports League revealed Thursday that they would soon introduce a drug testing policy against performance-enhancing substances, specifically Adderall, at its upcoming events. The news comes via Emanuel Malberg of Motherboard.com.
"Head of Communications at ESL Anna Rozwandowicz told Motherboard in an email that it will outline the details of its new policy soon, but that for now it has 'taken steps to move forward with drugs policing, education, and prevention among participants of [its] competitions,'" Maiberg wrote.
Malberg alleges that the policy is a direct result of Cory "Semphis" Friesen's admission last week that he and other members of his former team, Cloud9, used Adderall during ESL One Katowice in Poland, a tournament with a grand prize of $250,000.
"The ESL comms were kind of funny in my opinion," Friesen, a professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player said, referring to the communication between his teammates at ESL One Katowice, via a separate article from Malberg. "I don't even care. We were all on Adderall. I don't even give a f--k. It was pretty obvious if you listened to the comms. People can hate it or whatever."
Adderall is, of course, a psychostimulant made with amphetamines that is meant to help people with attention deficit disorder to focus.
Despite ESL's new policy and Friesen's admission, Rozwandowicz told Malberg that neither he, nor the rest of his Cloud9 team, will face punishment.
"We have no way of knowing whether Semphis, despite what he said, has actually taken Adderall or not," Rozwandowicz said. "We can't punish someone if we are not 100 percent sure he is guilty. And as we have no way to test it anymore (we're four months after the event), we won't take action in this specific case."
Of course, as a Eurogamer.net article from earlier this year points out, the use of prescription drugs in eSports may be the worst-kept secret of the exponentially rising and likely here to stay cultural phenomenon.
"I took the drug regularly, whenever I was playing games online and at professional competitions. I ended up getting addicted to the stuff," an unnamed gamer said.
At present, ESL's rulebook does not name Adderall specifically, but does make it clear that performing in a competition under the influence of anything is expressly forbidden - "To play a match, be it online or offline, under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, or other performance enhancers is strictly prohibited, and may be punished with exclusion."
