Electronic Sports League Will Police Adderall and Performance-Enhancing Drugs

Earlier this month a professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player claimed he and his teammates had used the performance-enhancing drug adderall during a recent ESL tournament.

The original story is below.

Unlike sports like baseball and football where the use of performance enhancing drugs has been a major issue at times, you would think that electronic sports would be immune from such issues.

Eurogamer heard from ESL’s head of communication Anna Rozwandowicz about the matter.

We’ll be speaking with ESL about its new anti-doping policies and how they’ll be administered soon.

A different source close to the ESL told the Daily Dot that the organisation would begin random drug testing via urinalysis, with the assistance of the World and National Anti-Doping Agencies.

When the interviewer asked if everyone does Adderall at ESL One, Friesen affirmed it. Adderall is typically used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, according to its Wikipedia description, but because its side effects include increased concentration, alertness, and wakefulness, it’s also commonly taken as a “performance and cognitive enhancer”. “We have no way of knowing whether Semphis, despite what he said, has actually taken Adderall or not”, Rozwandowicz explained.

In the immediate future the ESL says that it is taking “immediate action to ensure the company values of exemplary sportsmanship and integrity are guarded” by taking its first round of randomized PEDs skin tests at the ESL One Cologne event this August.

Aside from any reputational risks, abuse of drugs like Adderal and Propanalol comes with plenty of health risks that eSports leagues may rightly want to protect their players from.

The ESL plans to work with the NADA (Nationale Anti Doping Agentur, located in Bonn, Germany) to develop an anti-PED policy. The goal of this program is to ensure players are provided with information and structural support to help them manage the physical and emotional pressure that the highest level of competitive gaming puts on many of them. Players participating in individual competitions under the ESL brand will be reached through their respective team managers and/or owners with updates on changes in the tournament rules. “The company has a commitment to safeguarding the integrity of our competitions and providing a fair playground for professional players”. “We can’t punish someone if we are not 100 percent sure he is guilty”.

Expect Adderall to make the banned list, though.