- The LA county coroner ruled Matthew Perry’s death an accident caused by acute effects of ketamine.
- Ketamine has increased in popularity recently as a treatment for depression.
- Perry’s death highlights the fact that the drug can also be dangerous when misused.
Matthew Perry was open about his struggles with addiction and mental health, but according to Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, a potential misuse of one of the drugs that he also used for treatment contributed to his death: ketamine.
Perry was found dead in at his Los Angeles home in October. Authorities found the actor unresponsive in his hot tub, but the cause of death was not immediately known. On Friday, the LA county coroner ruled the death an accident, naming the cause as acute effects of ketamine.
Other factors that the coroner said contributed to his death were drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid use disorder.
While ketamine can be used as an effective treatment for depression when taken under medical supervision, Perry’s death highlights how it can also be dangerous when misused.
According to the report from the medical examiner, Perry was reported to be receiving “ketamine therapy infusion therapy for depression and anxiety.” However, his last known treatment was a week and a half before his death, meaning the ketamine in his system could not be from that treatment, according to the medical examiner.
“He was reported to be receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety,” the examiner’s report reads. “Per the Medical Examiner Investigator’s report, his last known treatment was 1 ½ weeks prior to death, and the ketamine in his system could not be from that infusion therapy, since ketamine’s half-life is 3 to 4 hours, or less.”
It’s unknown how ketamine got into his system, though the autopsy report found traces of ketamine in his stomach contents.
Ketamine is an anesthetic that’s commonly used in medical settings, as well as a party drug used for its hallucinogenic effects. In recent years ketamine has also been increasingly embraced as a promising treatment for depression.
Some proponents of ketamine treatment say it has life-saving potential for people with severe, drug-resistant depression, with the ability to help patients stop considering suicide within hours of a single infusion. Others say the drug can help couples rebuild their lives together by lowering their inhibitions and allowing themselves to be vulnerable with one another.
Despite its therapeutic applications, there are risks involved with ketamine use, especially in a recreational setting. Business Insider previously reported on patients who become addicted to ketamine after using it for legitimate medical treatments. Some have died after recreational use of the drug.
A 2022 study published in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse identified 138 deaths caused by fatal doses of recreational ketamine across eighteen different studies. However, the study found no cases of overdose or death that involved ketamine used as an antidepressant in a therapeutic setting.
“There is legitimate concern about the risks involving the use of ketamine and its analogues, especially in recreational settings. On the other hand, ketamine as medicine is considered safe and it is listed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organization,” the authors said.
The level of ketamine in Perry’s blood was in the range used for general anesthesia, according to the coroner’s report, which contributed to Perry losing consciousness and becoming submersed in his hot tub, where he drowned. Anesthetic dosages of ketamine are always significantly higher than the doses used in therapy treatments.
The coroner noted that coronary artery disease likely exacerbated the potential effects of ketamine on Perry and contributed to his losing consciousness and death.
Though the drug has been more widely studied in recent years due to its low risk of physical dependence — as opposed to opioids — some worry the risks of ketamine abuse are not taken seriously enough.
“I think we’ll look back one day and say, ‘We should have handled that differently,'” Zachary Phillips, a pharmacist in Atlanta who has worked with ketamine patients for over a decade, previously told Business Insider, “Which has happened so often.”
