Marijuana improves your video game abilities study finds

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WessleWoggle said:

binary solo said:

WessleWoggle said:

binary solo said:
Well then it better be banned from pro tournaments as a performance enhancing substance. After winning, gamers will have to be subject to a pee test for THC.

We better start lobbying ESL to bring in a dope ban policy otherwise drug cheating will become rampant.

Probably makes you care less about the result so no nerves, and makes you play unpredictably which can screw with opponent's play style.

That's silly.

Why is it silly? If smoking gives a distinct advantage then it makes it an unlevel playing field. It's not different to taking performance enchancing substances that improve athletic performance.

Do you know that giving a race horse a micro dose of fentanyl (an opiate that's about 10x more potent than morphine, which is legal to use for anaesthetic in horses) will make the horse run faster? doping horses prior to racing with micro doses of fentanyl is illegal in horse racing, and winning horses are routinely subject to pee testing for fentanyl. When prize money is on the line such things are serious business.

Because you can smoke right before the event and it won't show up on your pee test. Also, how is it any different from caffiene? Is caffeine banned? How about ginsing? Taurine? Also some people smoke marijuana to deal with pain or anxiety, it's their medicine. Should we also ban anxiety pills, or mood stabalizers, or pain pills because they can enhance performance in video games? What about adderol? Tons of gamers are prescribed adderol and it makes them play better. You didn't think this through.

Also, I've never agreed with the notion that drugs make people on an unlevel playing feild. If they were good enough (professionals as they're called) they would be able to beat someone even if they were on drugs enhancing their performance.

OK spit test then. That is immediate and short term (i.e. apparently only last in saliva for about 24hrs) so if you had a joint over 1 day before the tournament it wouldn't be detectable, and you wouldn't be enhanced.

If there is evidence caffiene enhances performance then yes it should be banned. But there is no evidence of that (nor ginseng or taurine). At most caffiene negates the impairment  of a crappy night's sleep. If you are fully rested and alert caffiene does nothing. Yeah, some drugs are banned in sport even though  they are elgitimate medicines. Sometimes they are absolute bans, and other times you can get medical exemptons. And not all medicines have performance enhancement effects. If a medicine only normalises a person with a medical condition but has no performance enhancement effect on a normal person then it would not be subject to any performance related restrictions. Does adderol boost a normal person's performance?

@bold, what bullshit. If you're a pro and I'm a pro and we're evenly matched, in a tournament situation if you smoke a joint and I don't that means you have obtained a chemically induced advantage and will win more often than our raw talent would suggest. That's an unlevel playing field.

If E-sport pros and the governing bodies want to be taken seriously as legit sports, which apparently many of them do, then they need to get with the programme on performance enhancement. Better that than banning girls from playing in the top leagues for some games.