The amount of ketamine “Friends” star Matthew Perry had in his system was equivalent to general anesthesia administered to surgical patients, according to his autopsy report.
The drug can leave users in a “trance” and be dangerous when taken in the quantities Perry appears to have ingested, especially if users enter water while consuming it.
The 54-year-old actor, who 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 a lot.
“He really committed suicide. She 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, California, told The Post on Saturday.
Wolfson was not involved in Perry’s treatment.
Angelique Campen, an emergency physician at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, told CBS News that ketamine can be dangerous when taken recreationally.
Perry, 54, seen in Los Angeles a week before his drowning death on October 28. TheImageDirect.com
“What I foresee happening with him is that what he does is he puts you in a kind of trance state, so he was probably in the hot tub in a trance state, slipped under the water and drowned,” he said. “So ketamine itself doesn’t stop breathing, but it may prevent you from waking up if you’re submerged.”
High amounts of ketamine can leave users unable to speak or move, a state users describe as falling into a “k-hole,” although no one could definitively say whether Perry was in that 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 in his central blood source. Coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder, also contributed to her death, but the main factor was “the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine,” according to the findings. No alcohol was found in the star’s system.
Perry was found floating face down at the end of his pool’s hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home on October 28. WFLA
Deaths from ketamine, even in the amount Perry had in his system, are rare, according to the American Addiction Centers.
Ketamine therapy, in supervised and controlled settings, has been used to help drug users kick their addictions, but the drug leaves the person’s system after a few hours, and the actor’s previous session had been approximately a week and a half before his death.
Drug users have had luck overcoming their addictions with supervised and controlled ketamine therapy, while celebrities such as Chrissy Teigen, Sharon Osbourne, Lamar Odom and Pete Davidson have touted its powers 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 in his central blood source. Denver Mail via Getty Images
Ketamine is “generally very safe,” Dr. Michael Bottros, chief of clinical operations and medical director of pain services at Keck Medicine of USC, told the Los Angeles Times.
It has been legal to obtain ketamine online since 2020, thanks to a federal public health emergency declaration during the pandemic era, which waived the requirement that healthcare providers see patients in person to prescribe controlled substances.
It has also been a hot drug on the California and New York club scene for years.
Perry rose to fame as Chandler Bing on the iconic sitcom “Friends,” but later admitted that he didn’t remember full seasons of the show due to his substance abuse. Courtesy of the Everett Collection
“At Hollywood parties, drugs like cocaine have become obsolete,” Los Angeles-based actor Damon González told the Post. “I’ve been out with friends in West Hollywood and ketamine is definitely the drug of the moment. People seem to love it for its mind-blowing calming effect. Better yet, you don’t feel terrible in the morning.”
Celebrities like Chrissy Teigen brag about their use of the drug on social media.
“I had a really nice birthday, went 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 cried. Then I slept with my babies, then I stew and then I was with my best friend,” Teigen wrote on Instagram on December 1.
But Perry is not the only one who succumbed to the drug.
A white tent in the backyard of Perry’s home after lifeguards were called to a drowning. WFLA
Author and psychedelic researcher DM Turner, author of 1994’s “The Essential Psychedelic Guide,” died on New Year’s Eve 1996 after injecting an unknown amount of ketamine while in a bathtub. It is believed that he was so incapacitated that he drowned.
John C. Lilly, a respected physician and author of “The Scientist: A Metaphysical Autobiography,” who conducted extensive research on 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 much of her time in her minibus, apparently shooting up several times a day.
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