Many doctors are quick to prescribe dangerous drugs to their patients. Unfortunately, this could lead to the user’s demise.
Former “Friends” star Matthew Perry was found dead in his pool in October 2023 due to a ketamine overdose. His death and the subsequent investigation shined a light on an alleged underground Hollywood drug scheme, which in Perry’s case, includes two licensed doctors.
Medical professionals are also involved in a legal ketamine industry that is growing in popularity, however. Doctors who spoke with the Daily Caller detailed the eye-opening problems that surround it.
Dr. Samuel Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale, told the Caller that some of the medical professionals administering ketamine weren’t even aware of some of the most common side effects.
“I talked to some folks who provide this clinically, and they’re surprised when I tell them that Ketamine is neurotoxic,” Wilkinson said. “Pretty much anyone who works in ketamine and neuroscience knows this. You should know this if you’re giving it to humans as a therapeutic intervention.”
Ketamine was used during the Vietnam War in the 1960s as a battlefield anesthetic, though also clinically. It has also been a party drug for decades and gained traction in rave culture in the 1980s, according to Release.
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Between 1200-1500 ketamine clinics have sprouted throughout the country, offering treatments to help patients with issues like obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. There were only 60 ketamine clinics in 2015, according to a report from R&A Psyins, a branch of insurance broker Rahn & Associates.
The industry “is a bit of a mess,” Wilkinson says.
Ketamine is a “dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects” and “can induce a state of sedation, immobility, relief from pain, and amnesia,” according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The Ketamine market is expected to grow significantly. A study conducted by Grand View Research estimated the industry to be worth $3.41 billion-dollars in 2023, a 70% jump from 2018.
Josette Sullins, founder of medical clinic dēhp Integrative Care in Phoenix, Arizona, treats patients with mental health and trauma issues. She opts for more natural treatments. “It has become common practice to prescribe. And so now I think we’re starting to trim that to a more holistic type of treatment,” she said. “I know at our clinics we will do everything possible prior to a prescription.”
Wilkinson says the FDA is worried about the potential cognitive problems that can happen as a result of repeated use. Medical professionals aren’t really good at immediately detecting them, so they won’t be aware of any harm until later, according to Wilkinson.
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Cognitive impairment, bladder problems that can lead to reconstructive surgery, and delusional thinking are all possible effects of the drug that Wilkinson says could cause “irreversible damage.”
Wilkinson believes doctors are too lenient and carefree about administering ketamine treatment and that more restrictions should be in place.
“Every once in a while, the FDA will send a warning letter to clinic saying, ‘We think this is dangerous.’ But beyond that, they don’t have a whole lot of authority to regulate the practice of medicine.”
FDA studies on the drug are more restricted and monitored than everyday administration, which can cause a skewed perception of its safety, Wilkinson says.
Medical boards don’t usually get involved unless there’s a drastic event, such as Perry’s death, Wilkinson says.
Dealing with the FDA Drug Safety Program is a pain in the neck, according to Dr. Wilkinson. He believes this is a motivating factor in doctors promoting the idea that intravenous ketamine usage is better than the FDA-approved version, esketamine, a legal nasal spray used to treat depression. Since prescribing esketamine means having to deal with lots of paperwork and health insurance, doctors forego that altogether and try attracting out-of-pocket customers to pay for intravenous ketamine, which is relatively more lucrative for them, Wilkinson says.
The FDA warns against using ketamine without a medical professional’s supervision, and they have not approved its intravenous administration for treating depression, according to Michigan Medicine. It is legal for doctors to prescribe ketamine, however, and they’re given leeway to develop their own treatment protocols.
Ketamine has proven to be popular with celebrities.
Chrissy Teigen boasted that she treated herself to a ketamine therapy session on her birthday in 2023. The famous swimsuit model and her husband John Legend lost their son Jack to miscarriage, and Teigen lauded the drug in her Instagram post.
“I had a really nice birthday 🥹 went to to see my friends @flamingo_estate, had a beautiful lunch with friends, then did ketamine therapy and saw space and time and baby jack and some weird penguins and cried and cried and cried. Then laid with my babies, then hot pot, then hung with my best friend 💗,” she wrote.
Sharon Osbourne spoke about using ketamine therapy, saying it helped her overcome the depression and anxiety she experienced after getting fired from The Talk in March 2021. She faced backlash after defending Piers Morgan’s comments about Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.
“I don’t believe a word she says, Meghan Markle,” Morgan said in 2021 during a Good Morning Britain episode. “I wouldn’t believe it if she read me a weather report, and the fact that she fired up this onslaught against our royal family, I think is contemptible.”
American comedian and actress Sheryl Underwood accused Osborne of validating Morgan’s “racist” views, which led to them clashing on air and Osborne’s eventual departure.
Osbourne claimed ketamine therapy helped her during this difficult time.
“I definitely went through a difficult patch at the beginning. I found it embarrassing. The humiliation that people would think that I might be a racist,” she told Daily Mail in a 2021 interview. “I went through three months of therapy. I had ketamine treatment and I got it all out. All the tears and everything that I felt, you know. All of that, it’s gone,” she said.
American singer and songwriter Halsey also admitted to undergoing ketamine therapy sessions in an August 2024 episode of the “She MD” podcast. She said it helped with PTSD and postpartum depression.
“A lot of people have a different experience. They cry, they laugh, they relive old trauma. For me, I started going back to before I was sick to old, old trauma in my first session, and it was almost like my brain was talking to me, like, ‘You don’t need to do that, you’re over that.’ I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ Then I started traveling to the newer stuff,” she said.
“I don’t feel like I had some sort of identity-altering experience in a negative way. I felt really happy.”
Sullins cautions that this could potentially be the tip-off to a larger problem, however. “Substance abuse disorder has a use, a misuse and then a full blown addiction stage to it.”
“Look at the opioid crisis. Let’s not do that again.”
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Stanford, Dr. Boris D. Heifets, agrees that one of the downsides of ketamine therapy is that a proportion of patients can develop a dependence.
“They will need escalating doses to get the same effect, and they start seeking ketamine outside of the therapeutic container,” Heifets told the Caller.
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Tech billionaire Elon Musk also discussed the drug in an interview with former CNN anchor Don Lemon in March 2024.
“There are times when I have sort of a … negative chemical state in my brain, like depression I guess, or depression that’s not linked to any negative news, and ketamine is helpful for getting one out of the negative frame of mind,” Musk told Lemon.
He stressed the fact that he obtained the ketamine prescription from “an actual, real doctor” and said he uses “a small amount once every other week or something like that.”
Regardless of how ketamine is obtained, the risks are still present.
“We need to make sure we’re not overdosing people, we’re not overexposing people. But a lot of people don’t seem to know that,” Dr. Wilkinson said.
Although ketamine care has certainly helped people, Dr. Heifets also emphasized that there’s less supervision, regulation and quality control than necessary in the industry.
Wilkinson is currently working on an FDA-registered study comparing the highly-regulated esketamine and racemic ketamine, which is delivered intravenously. He hopes to have a definitive answer on which of these is safer. In doing so, companies can then evaluate racemic ketamine and apply to the FDA to get it approved. Once approved, the FDA can then enforce regulations like dosing limits. Though a long shot, Wilkinson says this is really the only way to reel things in.
Lamar Odom Describes Using Ketamine For Therapy
Lamar Odom suffered a near-fatal overdose in 2015, at which time he told People he experienced 12 seizures and six strokes. The former NBA player spoke with Good Morning America in 2021 and said he abandoned the substances he was abusing in exchange for ketamine.
“I went to rehab and did some other things, but ketamine came into my life at the right time,” Odom said at the time. “I’m feeling amazing. I’m alive. I’m sober. I’m happy.”
Though Odom says he’s sober, he said he doesn’t think he would stop taking it, according to a 2021 Good Morning America interview.
Ketamine treatment seems to have worked for these stars, but it proved to be fatal for beloved “Friends” actor Matthew Perry. He had been candid about his struggles with addiction and was attempting to stay sober. He came across ketamine treatment, but became addicted. When he was unable to legally obtain more ketamine from a medical professional, prosecutors say some of his closest people allegedly helped him procure ketamine from unauthorized sources, ultimately leading to his death.
In spite of sounding the alarm and attempting to live a sober lifestyle, a doctor apparently prescribed ketamine treatment to assist the ‘Friends” star with anxiety and depression. Perry’s addiction had returned by the time he had completed his doctor-supervised ketamine treatment plan. An investigation into the star’s Oct. 28, 2023 death has uncovered an alleged dark, underground world in which ketamine was largely accessible, and in his case, fatal. His personal assistant, Kenny Iwamasa, was allegedly well aware of Perry’s struggles with addiction, yet allegedly agreed to supply the star with ketamine.
Prosecutors allege Dr. Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez — both licensed doctors — and Jasveen Sangha, known as “The Ketamine Queen,” saw an opportunity to profit from the actor’s addiction and vulnerability, and they took it to further their own financial gain.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said the vials of ketamine sold to Perry cost $12, but the actor was paying upwards of $2,000.
Prosecutors charged Plasencia and Chaves in August with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Iwamasa later admitted to finding Perry unconscious after ketamine use, but admitted he continued to obtain and administer the drug, according to court documents. He also found Perry deceased in the hot tub.
He admitted to procuring dozens of vials for the “Friends” star over the span of several weeks, according to the plea deal he made with the DOJ. He used multiple sources to procure the drug and aided in the purchase of more than $55,000 worth of ketamine for the star during the month leading up to his death, Estrada said. He has since pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
Unfortunately, Perry’s addiction became activated, Sullins said, and he was in reactive behavior rather than working on himself.
“People want to know what, what is this? What can this drug do? And good and bad, and I think that’s from a lot of a lot of telehealth, easy fix advertising,” Heifets told the Caller.
“There are a lot of unknowns.”
This article was originally published at dailycaller.com
