by Greg on Aug 13, 2015
In the wake of the Kory “Semphis” Friesen interview where he admitted that he and his teammates had used Adderall at a recent tournament for its focus inducing properties, the ESL has announced it will begin randomly drug testing participants in all future tournaments. The tests will not only look for performance enhancers such as Adderall, but also recreational drugs like marijuana. Of course if a player has a legitimate prescription for any of the banned substances they will still be allowed to participate.
In order to maintain the spirit of fair play within esports, ESL has partnered with NADA (the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur, which is headquartered in Bonn, Germany) to help create an anti-PED policy that is fair, feasible and conclusive while also respecting the privacy of players. ESL will also be meeting with WADA (the World Anti Doping Agency, based in Montreal, Canada) so they can be actively involved in the making, enforcing and dissemination of this policy to additional regions such as the US, Asia and Australia.
The test will be administered via a salivia test and will be completely confidential, with ESL stating it wants to avoid making any identities of those being tested or found to be using public. You can find more details in the official announcement.