But when he was denied a dose increase, the actor relapsed into addiction in the fall of 2023, according to federal prosecutors, and turned to dealers and doctors who weren't very careful. His death implicates two “unscrupulous” doctors, said Anne Milgram of the DEA, the federal drug enforcement agency. She denounced the “exploitation” of the actor by Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez, who “violated the Hippocratic Oath”.
Shockingly, the case still has an air of déjà vu: Michael Jackson's doctor was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter for giving the former king of pop a lethal dose of a powerful surgical anesthetic.
“Trap”
Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Prince also died after consuming legal substances obtained from health professionals. “Periods fly with celebrities and it constantly leads to tragedies,” Harry Nelson, a Los Angeles-based health lawyer, told AFP. “It's crazy!” »
The lure of profit plays an important role. In Matthew Perry's case, Dr. Plasencia obtained ketamine from his colleague Chavez, according to the indictment. The bottles, worth $12, were resold to the star for up to $2,000. “I wonder how much this idiot will pay,” Dr. Plasencia wrote in September 2023 in a text message discovered by the investigation. But the situation is sometimes more delicate, according to Mr. Nelson.
Celebrities really need to protect their privacy, the lawyer points out. Going to a doctor to get a prescription, then to a pharmacy to get medicine is unthinkable when you are followed by paparazzi every day.
Some doctors may then get carried away by the “glow and excitement” of a celebrity patient relationship, which is likely to be very demanding. They sometimes give in to their requests to “remain in their good will,” even “if it's against” their medical judgment. “But it's a trap,” believes Mr. Nelson, who has intervened in a dozen tragic cases involving celebrities. “It's a trap for both the celebrity patient and the doctor. »
“Party Drug”
With its dissociative and hallucinatory effects, ketamine was popular among California's elite as a “party drug” more than twenty years ago. In the mid-2000s, “a handful of doctors in Los Angeles were facilitating these parties where everyone would get shots of ketamine at a celebrity's house in Malibu on the beach,” says Nelson. The medical order cracked down on these doctors, revoking the licenses of some of them.
Today, ketamine is increasingly used legally to treat depression and post-traumatic stress. California is home to private clinics with extravagant prices and famous clientele, the lawyer recalls. Dr. Chavez, the ketamine supplier involved in the Matthew Perry case, ran such a clinic in the past.
Legal, this substance can in principle only be administered under the supervision of a doctor, due to the risk of adverse reactions: loss of consciousness, respiratory problems, etc. This did not stop Dr. Plasencia from entrusting the ketamine vials directly to Matthew Perry's staff. assistant, according to the investigation. Found him right on the street in the middle of the night to trade bottles for $6,000 cash.