WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 17: Matthew Perry attends the GQ Men of the Year Party 2022 at The West Hollywood EDITION on November 17, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for GQ)
OAN’s Abril Elfi
3:33 PM – Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Officials have launched an investigation in order to determine the specific source of ketamine that led to the death of Matthew Perry.
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On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Department announced that they are working along with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) focusing on the source of the Ketamine that reportedly killed 54-year-old Perry.
Following several stays in rehab and his open battles with alcohol and opioid addiction, Perry unexpectedly passed away in October. In his memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” which was published in 2022, he talked about how he became addicted to Vicodin pills following a jet-ski accident in 1997. He also discusses how, in 2019, opioid abuse caused his colon to burst.
According to a December report from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, the actor had purportedly abstained from illicit drugs and alcohol for 19 months prior to his passing.
Perry’s live-in assistant at the time reported that he had been out running errands for a few hours before coming back to Perry’s Pacific Palisades residence. At the home, the assistant soon discovered that the actor was unconscious with his face down in a hot tub.
Meanwhile, a coroner noted that Perry had reportedly utilized ketamine infusion therapy to treat mental health issues and that he had done so one-and-a-half weeks before his death.
However, the report also highlighted that the levels of ketamine in Perry’s deceased body was extremely high and it is unclear why the drug would still be in his system, since it typically metabolizes within hours. This led investigators to question if he had been picking up ketamine on the side, unbeknownst to doctors who were in charge of his ketamine infusion therapy treatments.
The coroner ultimately ruled his death an accident, and said “contributing factors,” including drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine, which is “used to treat opioid use disorder” was most likely the cause.
According to Perry’s assistant, the actor was playing pickleball on the day that he passed away and he had not displayed any signs of drug or alcohol abuse.
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