“Friends” star Matthew Perry’s amount of ketamine in his system was equivalent to general anesthesia given to surgery patients, according to his autopsy report.
The drug can cause users to “trance” and is dangerous when taken in the amounts Perry was seen ingesting, especially if the user enters water while on it.
The 54-year-old actor, who had long struggled with addiction, was found dead in his hot tub in October.
Dr. Philip Wolfson, one of the world’s leading experts on ketamine and author of “The Ketamine Papers: Science, Therapy and Transformation,” said the amount found in Perry’s bloodstream was substantial.
“He really did it himself. He must have taken a large amount. You don’t do this and go swimming or go to a pool of any kind,” Wolfson, director of the Center for Transformational Psychotherapy in San Anselmo, CA., told The Post Saturday.
Wolfson was not involved in Perry’s treatment.
Angelique Campen, an emergency room physician at Providence Medical Center St. Joseph, told CBS News that ketamine can be dangerous when taken recreationally.
Perry, 54, was spotted out and about in LA a week before her October 28 death from drowning. TheImageDirect.com
“What I’m expecting to happen with him is, what he’s doing is putting you in a trance, so he’s probably in a hot tub in a trance, slips under the water and drowns,” he said. “So, ketamine by itself doesn’t stop your breathing, but it can prevent you from waking up if you’re drowning.”
High amounts of ketamine can render users unable to speak or move, which state users describe as falling into a “k-hole,” though no one can say for sure if Perry was in such a state when he died.
According to Perry’s toxicology findings, 3,540 ng/ml of ketamine was found in his peripheral blood source and 3,271 ng/ml was in his central blood source. Coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, used to treat opioid use disorder, also contributed to his death but the main factors were “the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine,” according to the findings. No alcohol is found in the star system.
Perry was found floating at the end of her pool hot tub at her Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28. WFLA
Deaths from ketamine, even with the amount Perry had in his system, are rare, according to the American Center on Addiction.
Ketamine therapy — in a supervised and controlled setting — has been used to help drug users break their addiction, but the drug leaves a person’s system after only a few hours, and the actor’s previous session was about a week and a half before his death.
Drug users have had success overcoming their addiction with supervised and controlled ketamine therapy, while celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen, Sharon Osbourne, Lamar Odom and Pete Davidson have touted its power to help treat depression.
According to Perry’s toxicology findings, 3,540 ng/ml of ketamine was found in his peripheral blood source and 3,271 ng/ml was in his central blood source. Denver Post via Getty Images
Ketamine “is generally really safe,” says Dr. Michael Bottros, chief of clinical operations and medical director for pain services with Keck Medicine of USC, told the Los Angeles Times.
It’s been legal to get ketamine online since 2020, thanks to a pandemic-era federal public health emergency declaration, which waived the need for health care providers to see patients in person to prescribe the controlled substance.
It’s also been a trendy drug in the California and NYC club scene for years.
Perry first rose to fame as Chandler Bing on the iconic sitcom “Friends” but later admitted that he doesn’t remember entire seasons of the show because of his substance abuse. Courtesy of the Everett Collection
“In party Hollywood drugs like cocaine have become ridiculous,” LA-based actor Damon Gonzalez told The Post. “I used to go out with friends in West Hollywood and ketamine was definitely the drug du jour. People seem to love it for its trippy calming effects. Better yet, you don’t feel like hell in the morning.
Celebrities like Chrissy Teigen brag about using the drug on social media.
“I had a very happy birthday going to see my friends @flamingo_estate, had a lovely lunch with friends, then did ketamine therapy and saw space and time and baby jack and some weird penguins and cried and cried and crying. Then laid with my baby, then hot pot, then hung with my best friend,” Teigen wrote on Instagram on Dec. 1.
But Perry isn’t the only one who has succumbed to the drug.
A white tent in Perry’s backyard after first responders were called to the drowning. WFLA
Author and researcher of psychedelics DM Turner, author of “The Essential Psychedelic Guide” 1994, died on New Year’s Eve in 1996 after injecting an unknown quantity of ketamine while in the bathtub. He is believed to be disabled to the point of drowning.
John C. Lilly, a respected physician and author of “The Scientist: A Metaphysical Autobiography,” who did extensive research into psychedelics, ketamine and sensory deprivation tanks, eventually became addicted to ketamine.
A fellow researcher and friend told The New Yorker that Lilly ended up spending most of her time in her minibus, apparently injecting herself several times a day.
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