Matthew Perry’s autopsy reveals ‘Friends’ star had as much ketamine in his system as a surgical patient
The amount of ketamine “Friends” star Matthew Perry had in his system was equivalent to the general anesthesia given to surgical patients, according to his autopsy report.
The drug can leave users in a “trance” and be dangerous when taken in the amounts Perry appears to have ingested, especially if users enter the water while on 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 foremost 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 did himself in. He must have taken a large amount. You don’t do this and go swimming or go into a pool of any sort,” Wolfson, director of the Center for Transformational Psychotherapy in San Anselmo, Calif., told The Post Saturday.
Wolfson was not involved in Perry’s treatment.
Angelique Campen, an emergency room doctor at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, told CBS News that ketamine can be dangerous when taken recreationally.
“What I foresee happened with him is, what it does is put you in kind of a trance state, so he probably was in the hot tub in a trance state, slipped under the water and drowned,” she said. “So, the ketamine in and of itself doesn’t stop your breathing, but it can keep you from waking up if you are submerged.”
High amounts of ketamine can leave users unable to speak or move, a state users describe as falling into “k-hole,” though no one could definitively say whether Perry had been in such a state when he died.
According to Perry’s toxicology findings, 3,540 ng/ml of ketamine were found in his peripheral blood source and 3,271 ng/ml were in his central blood source. Coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder, also contributed to his death but the primary factor was “acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine,” according to the findings. No alcohol was found in the star’s system.
Fatalities from ketamine, even in the amount Perry had in his system, are rare, according to American Addiction Centers.
Ketamine therapy — in supervised and controlled settings — has been used to help drug users kick their addictions, but the drug leaves a person’s system after just a few hours, and the actor’s previous session had been about a week and a half before his death.
Drug users have had luck getting over their addictions with supervised and controlled ketamine therapy, while celebs like Chrissy Teigen, Sharon Osbourne, Lamar Odom and Pete Davidson have touted its powers to help treat depression.
Ketamine is “generally really safe,” said 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 obtain ketamine online since 2020, thanks to a pandemic-era federal public health emergency declaration, which waived a requirement for health care providers to see patients in person to prescribe controlled substances.
It’s also been a trendy drug in the California and NYC club scene for years.
“In Hollywood party drugs like cocaine have become passe,” LA-based actor Damon Gonzalez told The Post. “I’ve been out with friends in West Hollywood and ketamine is certainly the drug du jour. People seem to love it for its trippy calming effect. Better yet, you don’t feel like hell in the morning.”
Celebrities like Teigen brag about their use of the drug on social media.
“I had a really nice birthday went to to see my friends @flamingo_estate, had a beautiful 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 laid with my babies, then hot pot, then hung with my best friend,” Teigen wrote on Instagram on Dec. 1.
But Perry is not the only one to have succumbed to the drug.
Author and psychedelics researcher D.M. Turner, author of 1994’s “The Essential Psychedelic Guide,” died on New Year’s Eve 1996 after injecting an unknown quantity of ketamine while in a bathtub. He is believed to have been so incapacitated that he drowned.
John C. Lilly, a respected doctor 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 much of his time in his minibus, apparently injecting himself multiple times a day.
