Culture - Getting To Grips With The Drug Culture In Video Gaming

[Euphoric]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gettin...iew-29124.html

03:57 - Saturday 2 September 2006

The response to "Sex, Drugs and Counter-Strike: A Personal Account From The Edge Of Video Gaming", my essay chronicling a small slice of the mixing of drug and gaming cultures, has been mixed. Some people have said "Well, duh", whilst others have said, loosely though sometimes verbatim, "What the f**k?"

Many responses have been in-the-middle, saying things such as "I smoke some dope, but I've never spiked anyone's food with sextasy" and "I've seen people smoking pot at a LAN party, but not me."

This is good. Before now, in the unreported depths of this murky world, nobody had any idea where the lines were to be drawn. Is everyone doing some sort of drug above and beyond caffeine at LAN parties? Are people sitting at home tripping on acid while playing MMORPG's? Is this isolated, or do the drug users mix in with the sober gamers?

We're slowly beginning to get an idea of all of this, and it is my fervent hope and wish that this drug culture within video gaming be fully explored by open-minded researchers; so that we may shed light on this aspect of gaming culture which is increasingly a larger part of overall youth culture.
We're not entirely in the dark as it is, however, and from my experiences of the gaming drug culture I have observed many complex social classes, barriers and taboos. Just as someone smoking marijuana might not have a very high opinion of someone injecting heroin, not all those who mix drug use and video gaming are of the same cloth. Indeed, the lines are quite blurred between them.

The Sobriety Crowd

"Not all gamers are stoners" is one of the key messages I think that a majority of gamers would like to put across. If I had to guess, I would say that people who do not use drugs as a part of their gaming are probably in the majority - but that's just a guess.

These are your average Joe Gamers who will use caffeinated energy drinks and junk food to stay awake at a LAN or just in front of their computers.

You know these people. You either are, were or know them, if you're a gamer. No further explanation is needed.

The Marijuana Crowd

Of all the drugs in the world, marijuana is probably one of the most ambiguous where legality is concerned. Depending on where you live, you might go to jail for possession or it might be ignored, or it might be perfectly legal. Insofar as the effects, addictive properties and morality go, it is again an ambiguous drug, with most drug users considering it to be one of the more harmless substances you can take.

Of the last decade or two of Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Prime Ministers and senior world leaders, how many haven't been suspected of smoking dope? I say this to point out to you the ubiquity of marijuana. It is, of all the drugs among the youth, the most widely used and accepted. Of all the people I've spoken to and all the feedback I've read, many will say that they've smoked or do smoke marijuana, so what?

Therefore, as far as gaming is concerned, marijuana is your ubiquitous drug. Some may prefer Ritalin to cocaine or vice versa, but you can bet that 99.99% of those doing any other drug have smoked pot at some stage.

The results of smoking marijuana in enhancing your game are mixed, but it is widely believed to make it more fun. I doubt that if performance-enhancing drug use were to become ubiquitous among cheating pro-gamers that we would see many rushing out back in between rounds to smoke a joint. But for your casual gamer just playing for fun the expectation is different.

What I would really like to see is just how ubiquitous it is among gamers? Among the general population, in the US alone the Office of National Drug Control Policy says that:
"Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug. According to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), approximately 96.8 million Americans ages 12 and older reported trying marijuana at least once during their lifetimes, representing 40.2% of the population ages 12 and older. Approximately 25.5 million people (10.6%) reported past year marijuana use and 14.6 million people (6.1%) reported past month marijuana use."

It would be interesting to see a frank and honest scientific survey to see if the proportion of marijuana users among gamers is higher or lower than the national average.