What is ketamine, which caused the death of Matthew Perry?

The mystery is lifted over the death of American actor Matthew Perry. The star of the television series Friends, found unconscious on October 28 in a jacuzzi at his home in Los Angeles, died from "the acute effects" of taking ketamine, the Los County forensic pathology office announced Friday. Angeles, California.

Dead at 54, the man who played Chandler Bing in the sitcom Friends had been battling his addiction to medication and alcohol for years. He was clearly consuming this fast-acting anesthetic, used in medical or veterinary surgery, and which appeared in nightclubs. If used incorrectly, ketamine can have harmful and long-lasting effects.

Originally, ketamine hydrochloride is a molecule synthesized in the 1960s by the American chemist Calvin Stevens, to serve as a human and veterinary anesthetic. The first clinical trials were carried out on volunteer prisoners in the United States. To describe its effects, scientists then evoke a feeling of floating outside the body, a conscious mind but in a dream state. They speak of a “dissociative anesthetic”, a term which will later qualify ketamine.

The product, approved in the United States as an anesthetic in 1966, was administered to American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Its major benefit is to allow the patient to maintain their respiratory reflexes. However, when waking up, it causes nightmares or hallucinations in many patients.

In France, the first traces of misuse of ketamine date back to the end of the 1990s. “Kéta” is found in “raves” and nightclubs, and becomes an illicit hallucinogenic drug in the same way as MDMA, ecstasy or LSD. Its hallucinatory effects mixed with a physical sensation of losing one's body are particularly sought after by consumers. As part of the Palmade affair, the police found ketamine among drug traffickers suspected of having supplied the actor with drugs.

For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) has classified ketamine on the list of essential medicines, but subject to marketing authorization limited to hospitals.

In his memoirs, Matthew Perry confided having undergone ketamine infusion therapy during a detoxification treatment in Switzerland, according to the Daily Mail. He explained that this product was used “to relieve pain and help with depression”. Because according to an analysis published in the scientific journal The Lancet in 2022, the drug would be effective in fighting depression resistant to classic antidepressants. It seems not to induce, over a long period, cognitive disorders or addiction, noted the authors of the article.

At very high doses, “K” or “the pony drug”, as users call it, can however cause total loss of consciousness and a state of paralysis. Some people report near-death experiences (NDE). In the case of an overdose, or mixing with other products such as alcohol or other substances, it can cause a coma or sedation.