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eSports Doping: ESL To Begin Drug Testing Pro Gamers

eSports Doping

In the world of professional gaming, the use of performance enhancing drugs (PED) such as Adderall has led the Electronics Sports League (ESL) to partner with the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur (NADA) in Germany to help even the playing field by creating a “fair, feasible and conclusive” anti-PED policy.

The ESL’s Ella McConnell announced the anti-doping initiative to the eSports community at large in an entry published on the official ESL website on July 23, 2015.

In addition to partnering with NADA, which is headquartered in Bonn, Germany, the ESL announced that it will be meeting with the Montreal, Canada-based World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) in order to actively involve them in the creation, enforcement and dissemination of the new policy across additional regions, such as Asia and Australia.

ESL, presently the top eSports league, indicated in its announcement that it intends on maintaining a “proactive” approach when it comes to updating all of the professional players and organizations involved in ESL competitions on the progress of the new anti-doping initiative.

The’s ESL new drug tests don’t require players to relinquish samples of their blood. Instead, they employ a relatively simple and less intrusive method of checking players for the presence of drugs: a quick swab across the skin, ars technica reports.

The South Korea-based International eSports Federation’s (IeSF) Alex Lim told Wired (UK) in a report that the use of substances such as Adderall is “definitely” a problem in the increasingly relevant world of professional gaming that has the potential to “directly harm competitors with integrity and true play,” which is why the IeSF has been active in its fight against doping.

Performance enhancing drugs (…) directly harm competitors with integrity and true play

What are your thoughts on gamers taking stimulants and other performance enhancing substances in order to obtain an edge over their competitors?

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