WCG Tournament Director Admits Drugs In E-Sports 448
SlappingOysters writes "In the lead up to the World Cyber Games finals in Germany, Gameplayer has an incredible interview with Tournament Director Alex Walker in which he freely admits knowledge of participants taking illegal drugs to enhance their performance. The interview came in response to a previous article by the site in which they examined whether there was a need to bring drug testing into professional gaming events to ensure a level playing field. Walker said, 'I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did, although obviously they couldn't just pull out another joint midway through. In one WCG, a player I knew took amphetamines an hour before his match to boost his reflexes.'"
Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Insightful)
'I've seen a number of players at national tournaments who came in "baked" (that's stoned for the uninformed) purely so they could play better. In most cases they did ...
Um, I'm not a regular drug user but how are the effects of Cannabis [wikipedia.org] beneficial to gaming?
Acute effects while under the influence include euphoria, increased appetite, anxiety, short-term memory loss, and circulation effects which may increase risks of heart attacks.
I understand how drugs that affect your nervous system -- like uppers -- can increase your reaction time and muscle twitching for those games involving twitch skills. And nobody can shred on a guitar like an coked up hair band [youtube.com] ... but how does a drug that made my college roommate double up in laughter and fail at communication make someone better at video games?
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Calms you down a bit so you're less nervous perhaps?
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My guess is focus. On some games, if you become too focused, it is easier to make a mistake. If marijuana assists their ability to do abstraction then it could be beneficial.
Another example might be a scenario where being tense is worse than the loss of dexterity incurred from being slightly stoned. The best example I could come up with, for myself, is sniping. I do better at sniping (and instagibbing) moving targets when I relax and anticipate my enemies moves. If I was extremely tense (due to a money comp
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds like a reasonable explanation if you're assuming that they really are trying to improve gameplay through the effects of the drug. I haven't toked up in ~7 years, but I used to game stoned a lot. I was convinced that it improved my focus and can't entirely throw that assessment away now - I would get lost in the game. Maybe being stoned helped, maybe not - I never did any kind of comparison 'cuz I'd toke up before playing every single time.
Perhaps a more likely cause for smoking before playing tournament though:
* A lot of games (most?) are just more fun stoned.
* It's easy to game for endless hours while you're baked.
* If you play for a huge amount of time, you're going to get good (baked or not).
* If all of your experience with the game was spent stoned, you're going to want to be in the same state of mind while competing that you were when "practicing".
* So, you smoke before a tournament and achieve the same level of success that you've experienced at home.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
It's easy to game for endless hours while you're baked.
Of course, if you catch a whiff of pizza next door you're off gorging yourself for the next hour...
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
Next article: Stoners call foul when competitor brings twenty large pepperonis to competition.
Said one: Dude, not cool.
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You will be baked, and then there will be cake.
Effects of Cannabis! (Score:4, Insightful)
For what it's worth, this is analogous to a well known psychological effect known as state-dependent recall.
The effect specifically refers to the improved retrieval from long term memory experienced when the memory retrieval takes place in the same mind-state (in this example, of drug influence) that the memory was deposited in....
But my own experience of gaming while stoned will attest to a very similar (and strikingly simple) revelation, not strictly limited to memory retrieval: When you learn to play a game stoned, you play that game better while stoned.
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This obviously explains why I play pool better when drinking and I suck at it while sober.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Insightful)
Best guess? If you spend all your free time practicing the game while high, you're more accustomed to playing it that way. Playing it when you're not high entails a different playing experience to overcome. Not so much that smoking a joint helped them play better because of the effects of the drug, but it got them to a more "normal" state to play the game.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep, it's called state-dependent learning [wikipedia.org].
Almost certainly the case (Score:5, Informative)
Most recreational drugs are recreational because they produce an altered state of consciousness. Alcohol does the same thing. If you study a subject (say physics) while intoxicated, your recall of the material will be higher when intoxicated. It stands to reason that a similar phenomenon could exist with video games. They practice stoned so they play better stoned.
I'm not sure if that really counts as a "performance enhancing drug" though.
Re:Almost certainly the case (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I think of cannabis like a performance equalizing drug - not performance enhancement.
Consider Ross Rebagliati [wikipedia.org] from the Winter Olympics in Nagano who won gold in snowboarding (giant slalom) and was then disqualified for smoking weed. There is absolutly no way what so ever that cannabis will have made him a BETTER athlete during the games - all it could have done was make the other athletes relatively better (compared to him). Hence performance equalizing drug.
The fact that he could outperform the non-stoned athletes while being stoned himself is quite impressive. They should have given him a second medal (give him gold AND silver) instead of taking gold away. To be fair they did overturn that decision, but the point still stands.
Yes, it's an illegal drug in most places, and I suppose they should crack down on that to force the athletes to be "positive rolemodels", but I can't help but wonder what would happen if the same thing were to happen in a championship taking place in Holland. In that case you can't just disqualify on the grounds that the drug is illegal (because it's not), and it's obviously (well, maybe not scientificly) not a performance enhancing drug ... so what grounds would be used? "It's bad for you"?
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I always played Road Rash while drinking, and when I had a good beer buzz on I played better. But beer is legal. TFS talks of illegal drugs, WTF does "legal" have to do with it? What if I was prescribed a performance enhansing drug for a medical condition? The "illegal" drug would then be legal.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, in "normal" sports, illegal or legal means jack. Official sports events have a (quite long) list of substances that must not be found in your samples or you're disqualified. That list includs quite legal substances (caffeine, above certain levels) and over the counter medicine (some cold meds).
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Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
And nobody can shred on a guitar like an coked up hair band
That's quite true. Non-coked up guitarists are reduced to performing music.
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Drugs affect people differently, and people attribute all sorts of effects to them, accurately or otherwise. Where there is a marked improvement on cannabis, however, I suspect it's mostly because the gamer is simply accustomed to playing that way.
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Concentration. Being baked has the effect on some people, that they will be better able to concentrate on 1 single task. The roof may collapse, but they will score the frag.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Insightful)
Cannabis can certainly be beneficial in not only "gaming", but anything where there is undo pressure on you. The calming effect on your nerves, on your racing mind, on your anxiety can potentially be much more of a positive than the "bad side effects" are negative.
Don't believe the propaganda.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:4, Insightful)
Forgive me, I think you meant to say "undue". (Score:3, Funny)
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You've never played Mindball [mindball.se], have you?
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Informative)
Um, I'm not a regular drug user but how are the effects of Cannabis [wikipedia.org] beneficial to gaming?
Easy, THC (the active ingredient in Cannabis) causes your neurons to release large supplies of the neurotransmitter dopamine [wikipedia.org] into your synapses. Dopamine is responsible for helping your concentration. The idea is you're able to keep your focus much easier and concentrate on completing the task at hand in the game. For an experienced Cannabis user, this effect does in fact provide better gaming performance. I wouldn't recommend it for an inexperienced Cannabis user, however, as it can be quite disorienting for someone not used to it.
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Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
You should talk to Ellen Feiss. I'm sure she could shed some light into the advantages of being baked while using a computer.
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Easy, it helps you get in "the zone". You stop thinking so much, and start just acting. Most games you don't want to overanalyze what's going on, second guessing yourself can be fatal. Cannabis helps relax you and lets you just go with the flow. Really, any kind of mindless work is made much easier with a little herb in your system.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a past stoner. I still toke up every once in a while.
When people think of twitch gaming, they usually think of frantic gaming. Top players know that this isn't the case. A noob CounterStrike player shoots wildly. If cross hairs aren't over an enemy, why shoot? The noob ends up just missing and missing because whenever his cross hairs happen to cross an enemy, his gun is in between shots.
Top players know that it is better to wait a split second for the enemy to float across the cross hairs before pulling the trigger. For truly great gaming performance, the player must be in a "zen" like state, not a frantic twitch state.
Toking up can help a player reach this zen state, become immersed in the game, and oblivious to outside distractions. Of course non-potheads would probably be "ZOMG So high!" but for someone who smokes daily getting high is a calming state.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe not, but perhaps it makes your writing more salable to tv execs.
Speaking of TV shows, Entourage covered this pretty well. The character Turtle is doing some kind of XBox tournament thing and reveals to his buddies that he has to get baked to play well. In a typical act of brotherly love they inform him that there will be drug testing at the event. Hilarity ensues.
Personally, I think marijuana might provide an advantage in that it supposedly breaks down the users normal tendency to focus on single thin
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
This is totally true. I once played Counter Strike for, like, 8 hours straight while high on weed. Afterward, I smoked a few more bowls and decided I was going to play some Counter Strike in real life, because, like, what's the difference, you know? So I got myself a machine gun and was all ready to go out and mow some people down but then I thought, man, this gun would make a totally wicked bong. So I spent the next 3 weeks building a bong out of my M-16, and man, that shit is fuckin' crazy, dude! No shit!
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This is totally true. I once played Counter Strike for, like, 8 hours straight while high on weed. Afterward, I smoked a few more bowls and decided I was going to play some Counter Strike in real life, because, like, what's the difference, you know? So I got myself a machine gun and was all ready to go out and mow some people down but then I thought, man, this gun would make a totally wicked bong. So I spent the next 3 weeks building a bong out of my M-16, and man, that shit is fuckin' crazy, dude! No shit!
Are you sure you weren't just watching Platoon [youtube.com]?
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. I had a similar experience. I once got se baked and flew a transatlantic flight from New York to London without time compression in MSFS. When I was done, I ended up turning my hard drive into a bong.
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
Where'd you learn that Cheech? DRUUUUG SCHOOL?
Fixed it for ya :)
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Effects of Cannabis (Score:5, Funny)
Man, you're a wild beast.
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It's not the game action slowing down, rather the sampling frequency of your brain going up.
I noticed the same effect while listening to music: you can explore a few seconds of music as an infinitely detailed landscape of sounds. The same with thoughts (you can witness how thoughts are forming in your brain).
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Oh, ok, I just thought it would make people slower. Guess I have missed out on never actually testing it and figure out myself.
And here I thought I was hardcore when I took rhodiola rosea, ginkgo biloba, acetyl-l-carnitine, caffeine and theobromine, green tea / egcg and finally tyrosine and taurine though I don't see how the later would help before a couple of games of WC 3.
(I won 3 games in a row but there's a 1/8 chance for that so nothing special, since then I've won my last 11 games in a row at a chance
Statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
In a skill based game, your chances of winning aren't 1/2... Unless WC3 is what you call flipping a coin... War Coin III!
Rastas (Score:2)
Damn it is dr
To What End? (Score:4, Interesting)
While I think illicit drugs should definitely be banned, as always we have to ask what extent does this go to?
I can get in there and hook up a coffee/Red Bull IV, and do almost as much damage to my body as taking dexedrine. So they ban caffeine, which means no moutain dew, and we know mountain dew is one of the nectars of the gods.
As soon as you start eliminating caffeine, we get to the point that they can't take cold medicine before a tourney as it will show up as a drug.
As soon as money and egos get involved, people will look for any advantage they can get. I think drugs should be outlawed, but that the organizers need to be realistic, and understand that anything in excess can be harmful, and that a well rounded approach is necesary
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There's no 'should' about it. Illicit drugs are banned by definition - that's what 'illicit' means. Legalise all drugs and suddenly there's no such thing as an illicit drug.
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While I think illicit drugs should definitely be banned
Why?
I think drugs should be outlawed
Why?
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Illicit drugs should be legalized, at which point the gamers association will have nothing to prohibit. Problem solved.
joint ? (Score:2, Redundant)
Amphetamines make perfect sense, as would caffeine but I highly doubt cannabis would be beneficial.
AMP crash! (Score:2, Interesting)
Wait, what, man? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, amphetamines I can see, but weed? It doesn't exactly make your reflexes better and it's hard to pay attention when you laugh incessantly for no apparent reason. But I suppose it could help you focus more intently if... man my hands are HUGE... wait, what was I saying again?...
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Do you know people who code stoned? It might allow you to focus more on the task at hand.
Re:Wait, what, man? (Score:5, Funny)
As someone who writes a great quantity of code while stoned, I can attest that I tend to get more focused on what I'm writing, and honestly, more excited about it and obsessed about making it perfect.
These advantages are offset by the 50-line ASCII art comments I insert and the functions named "dogg_butt()" and "jibblejobble(int whaaaaat)." So, there are pros and cons.
Baked (Score:5, Insightful)
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Getting baked sure made ol slick Willie's speech last night a whole lot better. Bet the Republican convention will be great too. Maybe I'll make a game out of it, take a rip from the bong every time someone says "The surge has worked."
As if CliffyB wasn't enough to give us a bad name (Score:5, Funny)
News like this make me ashamed of my hobby in a way that even Barbie Horse Adventures couldn't manage.
Re:As if CliffyB wasn't enough to give us a bad na (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but have you ever played Barbie Horse Adventures on weed?
I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)
Why no drug testing other sports do it? (Score:2)
Why no drug testing other sports do it? Just look at Floyd Landis.
why drugs in any sporting event are bad (Score:3, Insightful)
because now it is not a display of human mastery, now it is a display of biochemical mastery
this is not some subtle philosophical point, because the followup point is that the emotional connection with the competitors is what drives audience attention, and that emotional connection is lost as people will tune out when they think it is the drug performing, rather than the athlete
any sport that openly accept drug enhancement is a sport that will see its ratings drop.
of course there will always be cheating, of course this means we must wage constant war, constant arms race, forever, on drugs in sports. this is simply the price you pay to retain interest in the sport
I disagree. (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time we had a sporting event in which drug enhancements are welcome so we can see the effects of the different drugs. "M0nstrMan took a double dose of crystal meth two hours before the contest, and we can see that he's 27 frags up on his nearest opponent. WeeTimmyLeary decided to go for tabs of acid today, and he's spent the whole match crouched in a corner screaming about purple caterpillars -- he doesn't have many frags, but nobody wants to go near him, either. 1nc1inerator's joytick hand is just a bloody stump at this point, but the heroin is really helping with the pain; he hasn't slowed down."
In all the non-drug sports it come down to genetics and chance, and that's hardly fair.
Huh? (Score:2)
In all the non-drug sports it come down to genetics and chance, and that's hardly fair.
You left out the part about years of training, physical conditioning, and downright hard, hard work.
The John Madden voice... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Now, ya see what he did here? 1nc1nerator thought M0nstrMan was gonna come through this gap, but M0nstrMan just gave him a little twitch-fake, and BOOM, suddenly he's eatin' raw plasma."
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Tell that to Baseball for the last half century... Everyone knew they all took a variety of stimulants to give them an edge. Only when that shifted to steroids did we suddenly have some fictional national crisis over drug use in pro sports.
No one really cares how they do it - We just want "our" team to win at any cost, and if they hit more homers on the way, all the better.
fictional national crisis? (Score:2)
so everyone who is disgusted by mcguire, everyone who is disgusted with baseball for that... this is fictional? the feelings of disgust they have is a mirage?
pffft
the effect i talk about is real: people want to see a human display, they don't want to see a roid head fiction ...well actually they DO, i just thought of something: it's called professional wrestling.
its very entertaining to watch a bunch of roid heads smack each other around
BUT NO ONE CONSIDERS THAT A REAL SPORT. it's a joke, a one act play
get
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because now it is not a display of human mastery, now it is a display of biochemical mastery
Humans are chemical machines. Thought itself is a chemical process. Muscle movement is a chemical process. Emotions are a chemical process. A human being is a complex chemical reaction, and nothing more.
of course there will always be cheating
If it's not against the rules it's not cheating. Make drugs legal and they're no longer a cheat.
this is simply the price you pay to retain interest in the sport
They say "Babe Rut
hanks for the edumacation (Score:2)
i had no idea human beings were chemical processes
(rolls eyes)
there is a difference between the chemical processes that genetics and training gave you and the one you injected this morning. this difference is real, and valid, and is the pivot across which investing yourself emotionally in the athlete takes place
"If it's not against the rules it's not cheating. Make drugs legal and they're no longer a cheat."
absolutely, that's a perfectly valid legal point
and i am not making a legal point. i am making a poin
you honestly believe (Score:2)
that taking methamphetamine and drinking clean water are comparable?
you really think that's a valid argument?
actually, i'll grant you something: there ARE grey areas. something that could be considered as a sort of enhancement/ an also be a sort of just food and nutrition
ok, but simply because it is difficult to find the spot to the draw the line coherently, does that mean that we don't draw a line at all?
this is actually a common moral quandry, how to deal with drawing a line in grey areas. and your approa
zzz (Score:2)
1. going 30 mph is the same as 140 mph, right? i mean the car is moving, so it's the same, right? braindead argument
2. sure, let athletes take drugs, who cares if no one watches. i mean, its not like someone will start up a drug free league to get things like advertisers, sponsors, an audience... you know, pay the bills? pffft
Common knowledge for "pro-gamers" (Score:5, Informative)
While the performance effects of cannabis are questionable, the fact that drug use, be it for recreational use or performance enhancement, is well known to gamers who actively compete in these kind of events.
Of the dozens of events I've attended, there's always a significant number of people getting baked before the evens. It's also not surprising to see a handful of people taking amphetamines to keep them on their A-game after hours worth of match ups.
Frankly this shouldn't be surprising, the entire sport centers around high caffeine sodas and gamer themed energy drinks. These events last for 6-8 hours at a time and winning becomes even more critical as the matches move towards the 11th hour.
The community's resistance towards the entire drug testing issue best highlights all of this, when a number of leagues started pushing around the idea, there was both apathy and outrage over the idea, yet few voices of support on the issue. The suggestion that nearly every team has at least one guy who probably does some kind of narcotic also plays a part in this viewpoint.
Until pro-gaming starts to get some real ad dollars behind it, the drug use will continue.
Re:Common knowledge for "pro-gamers" (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been to lots of big lan parties and most the time I'll be one of those people getting stoned beforehand or going out for the occasional joint during the day/evening.
Nothign to do with trying to "enhance performance", I just like playing games even better when mashed.
I suspect this explains a lot of the usage and why Cannabis (a drug not normally associated with performance enhancement) is the apparent drug of choice for gamers.
What about performance-enhansing surgery? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a CrystaLens implant that allows my old left eye to focus, unlike unmodified eyes in people my age. Before the implant my vision was incredibly bad; I wore "coke bottle" glasses all my life. Now my vision is vastly better than the normal 20/20. If I were in these games I would need no eyeglasses, unlike most nerds young and old, and unlike almost all geezers.
Sweat dripping down your glasses is a definite minus in any game.
Would my implant disqualify me? If not, I say let 'em ruin their lives with cocaine or amphetamines.
Entourage dig it already (Score:2)
No such thing as 'e-sports' (Score:3, Interesting)
Computer/console gaming can be a professional endeavor but it isn't a sport anymore than professional chess is a sport. A sport requires some degree of physical activity beyond clicking a mouse or gamepad.
I'm not taking anything away from the level of skill involved and maybe I'm just getting into the semantics too much, but I'm tired of people equating professional gaming with sports. Again, the chess analogy comes to mind.
Drugs vs Mechanical diff. (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's not necessarily mechanical vs. drugs, it's more about the intention. There's nothing wrong with taking a drug to get someone back to what would be considered "normal health." It's not a total ban on drugs. They're not going to suspend a football player for taking aspirin or anything like that. It's definitely not a clear-cut line, which makes the whole debate that much more complicated.
At the end of the day, there's very strong evidence that steroids and the like have some really significant and unheal
How is the "playing field" in any way "level"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but the majority of us simply aren't built to compete in sports any more. How can I compete with Michael Phelps's body, that's designed for swimming [wikipedia.org]? Sure, training helps, but the current top-level competitions are accessible only to those genetically suited for them. The Olympics might have had some relevance back in the Greek days, when you could look at the athletes and say "well, if I trained hard, I could run as fast as these guys". These days, there is no amount of training that can let me swim as fast as Phelps or run as fast as Bolt. So what's the point? All these athletes are necessarily "freaks" now, and the only way to beat them is to become a bigger freak.
Re:How is the "playing field" in any way "level"? (Score:4, Insightful)
> What if Phelps had his hands surgically altered so he had webbed fingers,
> and got fingertip extensions so he could hit the pool wall a split-second
> faster? It perverts the message that sports is supposed to be about.
Oh? But he does have these alterations! His feet are size 14, practically flippers, giving him much stronger kicks and making him faster. He has very long arms too, which are handy not only for touching the wall sooner, but for extending the length of his power stroke. Both of these are far more significant than a what a simple drug injection would give. So what were you saying about "perverting the message"?
> It's supposed to be about achievement, not competition.
Then why do we give out medals? The Olympics is very specifically a competition, with the winners getting the gold and the losers getting ignored.
> Any game needs firmly established rules so you know where to draw the line at cheating.
If it's about achievement and not competition, what do you care about cheating? You are not competing, are you?
> "trying hard will make anyone perform better than not trying."
> If you let the drugs in then that message gets distorted with
> "you can achieve the same results with less effort by finding things that make the problem easier to solve."
Why is that worse than "you can achieve the same results easier and get further than anyone else by having the right genese"? Does it really matter whether you are born with the enhancement, like Phelps was, or have to take one as a supplement? And compare this with a diabetic, who has to inject insulin to stay healthy. Is he an inferior person because he is "cheating" on his metabolism?
> most people will hear that message and think that sneaking notes
> into a test or copying an essay off the internet is the same thing.
Isn't it? Suppose one man passed all his tests honestly and got a 4.0 GPA, which got him a good job and a decent income. Another man cheated on all his tests, got the same 4.0 GPA, and then got himself the same job and income for a lot less effort. The cheater is obviously more efficient, since he got more with less effort. Sure, he didn't educate himself as much as the other guy, you might say, but if all you want is enough money, that is irrelevant. There will always be more hardworking suckers to exploit, who'll cry that these actions are unfair and immoral, but the cheater will get a management job, lots of money, and a trophy wife, while the hard worker will hang out on Slashdot and spend the rest of his childless life complaining bitterly. Darwin says the cheater wins.
Why just "illegal" drugs? (Score:3, Interesting)
It is About Time (Score:2)
Stoned (Score:2)
Well, since the gamers are all already petrified, all we need now are few vats of hot grits and...
wait, nevermind I don't want to ruin that.
e-sports (Score:3, Funny)
wtf is an 'e-sport?'
They should (Score:3, Interesting)
go in the opposite direction and "require" everyone to take drugs to enhance their gaming experience. That would level the field also.
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if you can spend 12 doing something you find a lot of fun, then you're stoned. anyone else would get bored and go out.
fools. These are the people who bought a thing they find fun? do you honestly think that they don;t toke?
Fixed that for you, Mr. "I'm cool so I run around belittling gamers".
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I played Halo for over 14 hours on the straightedge one day, stopping only for food and bathroom breaks where absolutely necessary, and got right back to it the next morning (well afternoon...those were the days). Maybe you just aren't big on gaming, somehow.
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I've never been stoned (perhaps very mildly passively, but I've never done non-prescription drugs), but have played games for 12 hours straight a few times. I even took a couple of days off work for the release of GTA4. Then I went to see Iron Man after having no sleep the night before. I felt pretty crappy in the few days after that, but it was a lot of fun at the time :)
The most time I've ever played a game was when I got Operation Flashpoint 1. I completed it in 3 days, and I think I had something like 4
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I don't remember ever posting to Slashdot stoned, but I have often taken several hits off a nice gravity bong and woke up the next morning to find my Slashdot post count has jumped by 100 and my keyboard is stained with Cheeto dust, so it probably does happen.
Re:Marijuana isn't a performance enhancer, jackass (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly you're very upset about this. You know what would calm you down? Weed.
Re:Marijuana isn't a performance enhancer, jackass (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a sweeping blanket statement that comes from uninformed bigotry. I've never had the munchies, I've never gotten paranoid, and I certainly don't giggle. Neither has anyone else that I have had a smoking experience with. These are horribly inaccurate stereotypes thrown out there to make it seem like Marijuana being illegal is less ridiculous than it really is.
Sure, it has its undesirable side effects. So does drinking too much coffee. And to say that there can't possibly be any good effects from pot are only spoken by the sheep. The problem ultimately is, only the people who smoke will know what they are... because people like you have your mind made up, and nothing in the world can change it.
Re:Marijuana isn't a performance enhancer, jackass (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been smoking marijuana since I was 12, am now 36, and work for one of the top hardware/software companies in the world running other people's Wintel backends. Today in my home office I'm building several servers remotely, attending meetings, and taking emergency calls. For further reference, see the excellent Penn and Teller show Bullshit!, episode The War on Drugs, especially the sections on the stock trader who works on the NYSE floor. He smokes several joints daily, all of which are provided by the US Federal Government for his possibly fatal bone spurs. There really are professionals out in the world who smoke quite regularly, even as often as several times a day.
Jonah Hex
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Hmmm that's interesting, most of the stoners in my life responded very well to high stress situations. Most went to ivy league schools, a couple went to Harvard Law, others graduated from schools like NYU (where just about every student I've met smokes pot.)
Perhaps your friends smoke entirely too much pot (
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Back in the uni times a friend of mine and I used to play chess in pubs a lot. A few times we did it while being baked. The result was always the same - we were both waiting for the opponent to make a move... .
As for performance enhancing, it works quite the opposite - you tend to focus too much on one thing and have a hard time remembering all the others... once you remember another aspect of the game, you focus on it and again, forget about everything else. And sometimes you realize that you've been th
Re:Baked? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was more annoyed at the clumsy parenthetical aside explaining what it meant.
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If you meant high, why not say that in the first place? Stop hijacking random words! Oh wait
If I meant intoxicated, why not say that in the first place? I need to stop hijacking random words!
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no one hijacked the word.
What else would you call using a word that means X and subvert it to Y instead?
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What else would you call using a word that means X and subvert it to Y instead?
I would call it slang. I would also call it the natural evolution of language. It may not always be for the better, but any language is always changing. I recommend getting used to it.
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They just tried to stone Jesus and throw him off a cliff or something, but he walked away through the crowd :p Other guys in the bible were stoned, however. I used to go to a presbyterian church and yet I knew what 'stoned' meant. I'm sure all but some of the ancient old biddies knew. I did occasionally find it a little amusing that stoned means something else today, but at the same time, people getting pelted to death by rocks (still happens in some Islamic cultures) isn't really all that funny.
But yes, 's
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Captain Kirk? Is that you?
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I still find it hard to accept that some guys are actually "professional athletes".