Performance Enhancing Drugs

darthxaos · July 22, 2015, 10:58pm

Do PAPA or IFPA have a policy on Performance Enhancing Drugs?

PressStart · July 22, 2015, 11:03pm

There are Performance enhancing drugs in pinball?

haugstrup · July 22, 2015, 11:52pm

Caffeine pills?

haugstrup · July 22, 2015, 11:53pm

A lot of games say “Winners Don’t Use Drugs”

jay · July 23, 2015, 12:18am

I’ve certainly played my fair share of matches against opponents that were performance dehancing.

spd303 · July 24, 2015, 11:26pm

I can think of a couple of drugs I’ve taken that, for one reason or another, have helped with my performance, even in regards to tournament play.
Alcohol, psilocybin, LSD, cocaine tend to help.
Marijuana usually makes me play like I’m stuck in mud. Your mileage may vary.

phishrace · July 25, 2015, 7:40pm

FYI I’ll be selling Adderal in the parking lot outside Pinburgh. 1.25 mg for $20 each and 2.5 mg for $30. Please have exact change ready as between you pinheads and all the gamers attending, I expect business to be brisk. Look for the skinny white guy wearing a fedora.

TaylorVA · July 25, 2015, 8:14pm

It’s Adderall and I’ll take 3.

MrMCarlson · July 26, 2015, 4:01am

There’s starting to be a thing with drugs in e-games. Is that what they call it? Some kind of video game competition.

PinUbermensch · July 27, 2015, 4:05pm

$20 for 1.25mg?? You have a bridge for sale as well?

jtron · July 27, 2015, 10:04pm

For some people, pot is definitely a performance enhancer. As for alcohol, I feel like for me, 1-3 beers help a little, but there’s a sharp decline after that.

DHS · July 28, 2015, 12:44am

E-sports (or Esports) And they’re a big deal—the DotA 2 ‘The International’ tournament has a prize pool of about $17.5 million.

Of course, which drugs are PEDs for playing video games aren’t the same as for football or running, but there’s plenty of ‘focus enchancers’ out there. Given that most pro gamers are 17-20, maybe having them be wigged out on mind-altering drugs for their job isn’t the best thing.

It wouldn’t surprise me if those drugs were also efficacious for pinball, but I don’t know if the money’s in Pinball to make people take drugs that otherwise wouldn’t.

gumby · July 28, 2015, 2:23am

Adderall is so 90s. it’s all about the modafinil.

phishrace · July 28, 2015, 3:02am

$20 for 1.25mg?? You have a bridge for sale as well?

We’ll also have a superbands amnesty deal there. Turn in 20 superbands, get a 2.5. New or used, same deal. No questions asked.

Our small way of helping to keep the sport clean.

jtron · July 28, 2015, 10:06pm

(does Adderall even come in 1.25mg? My scrip’s for 20mg…)

PinUbermensch · July 29, 2015, 10:41pm

It does not. Preludin is what we want. Hey it was good enough for Lennon.

PinballJules · August 3, 2015, 4:27am

Darthxaos, what drugs are you thinking of?

Seraph · August 8, 2018, 6:11pm

Apologies for the thread necromancy. I’ve had the question of Pinball Enhancing Drugs on my mind off and on for the last couple of years, and thought I’d dig up any old threads on the topic before starting a new one.

Here is my experience: I have environmental allergies. Terrible, snot-inducing, sneeze-forming, head-pounding, brain-fogging allergies. I live in a place where there’s never not something in the air that offends my immune system: cedar leads to oak leads to mold leads to ragweed leads back to cedar.

I often attempt more natural remedies, but sometimes you have to dig into the bag and bring out the big guns. It was during one of these times a few years ago that I noticed that small doses of Sudafed led to greatly enhanced pinball playing ability. My head seemed clearer, my focus was greater, my style of play was more relaxed, and my scores were far higher.

This was more than just “oh, I feel better, so I play better.” It was like being on another level. I’ve replicated the experiment a few more times since, and the results have been pretty consistent. It’s not a blind study, to be sure, so there may be some placebo effect, but overall it still seems pretty remarkable.

Naturally, my thoughts turned to “is this ethical?” The World Anti-Doping Agency bans pseudoephedrine in sport, but there’s no such prohibition in pinball. The drug is inexpensive, readily available, and reasonably safe at these low doses, so there are no fairness or health and safety concerns. Would your opinion change if this were self-medicating some undiagnosed ill (say, ADHD or narcolepsy), and the results were only pronounced for people that had such an illness, with your average player’s skill unaffected by the drug?

Certainly other substances that can affect play somewhat positively (the Ballmer Peak is real!) are in wide use throughout the hobby. I just wonder where the line is drawn.

jdelz · August 8, 2018, 6:14pm

I think any sort of anti-doping policy would HEAVILY cut into the IFPA’s mission statement.