Electronic Sports League bans the same drugs as the Olympics
Sorry, everybody, but you can't get high and play Counter-Strike anymore, at least not in the Electronic Sports League. The fledgling pro gaming league announced on Reddit Wednesday that it is adopting the World Anti-Doping Agency's list of banned substances for its players. The league had announced it would ban performance enhancing drugs from competition after a team revealed that its members had consumed Adderall prior to a match in March to enhance their ability to focus.
"Our main goal is and always will be to maintain the fair play spirit and the integrity of our competitions," an ESL rep wrote in a Reddit post, "and we're confident that the anti-doping policy is an important improvement that will help us advance as a sport."
The banned list includes everything from anabolic steroids and HGH to cocaine and cannabis -- seriously, it reads like a pharmacy's inventory report. There are differing levels of enforcement, however. Weed, for example, cannot be consumed "from the start of the first day until the end of the last day of competition" but is acceptable when you're not competing while coke, steroids and focus-enhancers like Adderall are banned at all times. Exceptions will be made if competitors have a valid prescription for whatever they're taking. The league will randomly test competitors and the penalties for rolling dirty range from fines to a maximum 2-year ban from the league.
[Image Credit: Getty Images]
