Perry, Matthew

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    Doctor Who Gave Matthew Perry Ketamine Will Plead Guilty, U.S. Says

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    Dr. Salvador Plasencia, an urgent care clinic operator in the Los Angeles area, could face up to 40 years in prison in connection with the actor’s 2023 death.A doctor who illegally supplied the “Friends” actor Matthew Perry with the drug ketamine in the weeks leading up to Mr. Perry’s death in 2023 — traveling to his home and a parking lot to inject him — has agreed to plead guilty, according to court documents.The doctor, Salvador Plasencia, could face up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine on four criminal counts of distributing of ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, under the agreement, which was filed on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles.Dr. Plasencia, 43, an urgent care clinic operator in Calabasas, Calif., will become the fourth person to plead guilty in connection to Mr. Perry’s death, which the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office determined was caused by the “acute effects” of ketamine. A court date has not been set.Mr. Perry, who publicly struggled with drinking and drug use for decades, was found floating face down in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on Oct. 28, 2023. He was 54.An autopsy said that drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of an opioid, buprenorphine, had contributed to his death.Ketamine, which has psychedelic properties, has emerged as increasingly popular alternative therapy for anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. It is also used recreationally.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the Effects of Ketamine

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      Elon Musk has said that he used ketamine as a treatment in the past, but he denied reports that he was taking it frequently and recreationally.News reports detailing Elon Musk’s drug use have prompted renewed attention to ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly popular as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health issues.Although Mr. Musk has acknowledged using ketamine in the past to treat depression, he has denied suggestions that he is currently using ketamine — or any other drug.“I am NOT taking drugs!” he wrote last week in a social media post following the publication of an article in The New York Times that described reports of his use of drugs on the campaign trail last year. Those drugs included ketamine and other psychedelic compounds, among them MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms.Mr. Musk left the White House last week. Since then, he and President Trump have traded barbs on social media over the president’s domestic policy bill and have mentioned government contracts with Mr. Musk’s companies and Mr. Musk’s relationship to the White House.Mr. Trump, who was briefed on the article in The Times, has been telling associates in the last day or so that Musk’s “crazy” behavior is linked to his drug use, according to a Times report citing two people with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s private conversations. But later on Friday, Mr. Trump told reporters he did not want to comment on Mr. Musk’s drug use.The very public feud between the two men has once again drawn unflattering attention to ketamine, a drug that has become increasingly available at legal clinics across the country. It is also used recreationally and can be dangerous when misused.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Matthew Perry and the People Who Prey on Addicts

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      Deep into my love affair with cocaine, I sat in the living room of a neighbor’s house with several other people, waiting for the mirror with the coveted white lines on it to come my way. It’s why we were all there — to buy coke and get high during the transaction. The woman sitting nearest to me yelped in pain as she snorted the lines through a white plastic straw. She explained that she’d burned a hole through her septum from doing coke. Then she shrugged and said something about having to get it repaired at some point.There was a moment, as the mirror came to me and I bent over it, seeing my reflection beside the lines I so desperately wanted, when I saw clearly the cost of this addiction. But that brief moment was swallowed by the desire that propelled me, her and everyone else in that room. I watched as our host — our dealer — escorted her to the door, handed her the small zip-lock bag containing the love of her life, and took a wad of cash in exchange. I’m quite sure he never had a moment of hesitation or guilt.The recent charges made in connection with the death of Matthew Perry sent these memories hurling back at me. It’s no surprise to encounter the callousness, the greed of dealers who know with expert precision how to prey on addicts. But in Mr. Perry’s case, we’ve seen a murkier area — a messy middle ground where people apparently start out thinking they’re helping but end up enabling and eventually hurting. Two doctors and Mr. Perry’s personal assistant have been charged, in addition to two other people. Maybe I’m being generous, but I’m assuming that the doctors, at least at one time, respected the pledge to “do no harm.” Yet it was one of the doctors who sent the text that read, “I wonder how much this moron will pay.” Matthew Perry ended up paying $55,000 for roughly 20 vials of ketamine. I have no idea what the market price for ketamine is, but $55,000 seems a bit steep.Matthew Perry was not a moron. He was a man in a dark tunnel, a tunnel that echoes with desperate desires he had tried, but in the end failed, to control. I have seen some in that tunnel who understand, with chilling cruelty, how to prey on addicts and have no pangs of conscience about doing so. They know that rational thought and instincts of self-preservation get drowned out by the raging desire to feel a drug coursing through one’s body.When I worked in a restaurant, I could tell intuitively when customers had coke on them. I was almost always right. I went out to the parking lot and sat in cars with total strangers just to do a line. As stupid as that was, I’m not a moron either. I was led by an addiction that blindfolds you and shoves you in the direction of only one thing — the drug you crave.Did some of the people charged in connection with Mr. Perry’s death start out rationalizing? Saying things like, “We’re helping to lessen his pain” or “If we don’t give this to him, he’ll get it somewhere else?” However they started out, they seem to have ended up in the same cold terrain as the dealers. When Matthew Perry died, a text went out between two of the five people charged saying to delete all previous texts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Arrest Made in Investigation Into Matthew Perry’s Death

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      Law enforcement agencies have been working to identify the source of the ketamine that led to the “Friends” star’s death.The authorities in Los Angeles have made an arrest as part of their investigation into the death of Matthew Perry, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.The person, who was granted anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said that more details, including the name of the person arrested, would be released at a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday morning.The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office said in an autopsy report released in December that Mr. Perry had died of “acute effects of ketamine.” The actor, who gained sitcom superstardom as Chandler Bing on the show “Friends,” was discovered “floating face down” in the heated end of a pool at his home in Los Angeles.Ketamine, a powerful anesthetic with psychedelic properties, is increasingly being used as an alternative therapy for depression, anxiety and other mental health problems. It is also used, and abused, recreationally.The police in Los Angeles acknowledged this year that they were working with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate the source of Mr. Perry’s ketamine and whether it was obtained legally. A spokesman for the United States Postal Inspection Service said it was assisting with the investigation.The autopsy report said that Mr. Perry had been on ketamine infusion therapy, but it determined that the ketamine in his system could not have been from his last known therapy session, about a week and a half before he died. The autopsy said the level of ketamine found in Mr. Perry’s blood was equivalent to the amount that would be used during general anesthesia.Mr. Perry had a history of drug and alcohol addiction, which he wrote about in a memoir.The medical examiner’s office said that drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, which is used to treat drug addiction and for pain, had contributed to his death. More