You've probably heard about the Adderall drama that was started by pro CS player Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen when he openly admitted that all the members of his team ( Cloud9) were using this stimulant drug during the ESL One Katowice tournament.

Although none of the team members have been punished, mainly because the Electronic Sports League couldn't prove they actually took amphetamines, Anna Rozwandowicz, ESL's Head of Communication, announced a program in partnership with NADA and WADA (respectively German and worldwide anti-doping agencies) to help create an anti-PED (Performance Enhancing Drugs) policy that is "fair, feasible and conclusive while also respecting the privacy of players".

The official rules and guidelines will be updated with the new measures, meanwhile the first saliva tests will randomly take place in ESL Cologne next week-end, and will be extended to all competitions organized, hosted or produced by ESL (Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One, ESEA Pro League, etc.).

ESL will be looking for some substances that made the WADA list, including marijuana, for which they recently raised the threshold by a factor of 10.

As eSports continue to grow in visibility and popularity, ESL, one of the oldest and largest organization, wants to pave the way to a new integrity standard in order to protect the players and the sport as a whole. Will this become the new norm for every eSport organisation? If professionnal gamers want the same recognition as traditional sport athletes, it will certainly have to.