Gaming's New Drug Culture: Sex, Drugs and Counter-Strike

[Jet Set]

Sex, Drugs And Counter-Strike

A Personal Account From The Edge Of Video Gaming

By Aaron McKenna
Editors Note: Aaron McKenna recently attended a LAN party at an undisclosed location and observed a number of gamers, who wished to remain anonymous, indulging in various activities such as illicit drug use. The following article recounts his experiences and observations of what we would term the modern LAN party. To keep the account realistic, this article contains references to illicit and illegal drug use, some frank observations and some coarse language.
"There's enough shit here to put a man on the moon," my hospitable host told me with a twinkle in his eye. Strewn around the otherwise neat kitchen in quasi-organized backpacks and plastic shopping bags was an impressive collection of uppers, downers and psychedelics. Stuff to snort, stuff to smoke, stuff to swallow - marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms, acid, Ritalin, Adderall, Ephedrine - with side orders of beer, vodka and whiskey for those not taking part in the very specialized mental activities here this weekend.
Welcome to the modern LAN party. The culmination of nearly 50 years of youthful drug use and almost 30 years of video gaming, this is the natural co-evolution of two of the Western worlds most popular recreational activities for the young and virile. "Think about it," one clean-cut and respectable looking acid-head told me, "and it makes perfect sense. We're all gamers, and we all enjoy doing drugs. What could be better than doing them both at once?"

The place was beginning to fill. The bottom half of an innocuous-looking suburban home, anonymous in its uniformity, was about to become a high-tech drug den. Apart from the loaded kitchen, one would not be able to distinguish this from any other clean and respectable gathering of geeks. Computers were being hauled into the various rooms around the bottom of the house, cables were being crimped, and a moderate-sized network was being expertly assembled by high-GPA students and seasoned systems engineers. Wires were run from the large dining room (now sans dining table) to the living room, where couches had been moved but not removed to allow for extra seating. The cables snaked around into the kitchen, where the main hub was located, giving the place the feel of a building under construction.
No, this was not a gathering of twitching, crazed-looking heroin addicts who would sell organs - theirs or yours - to feed their habits. It was not a cult of religious acid-heads trying to reach out and touch some higher cosmic power. Nor did anyone there reek of ether from one end of the day to the next.