Exclusive | Matthew Perry wanted to set up his own ketamine therapy business before OD: sources

Matthew Perry was so obsessed with ketamine, he wanted to set up a business selling the drug so others could enjoy its therapeutic benefits, according to a friend.

The “Friends” star, who died from an overdose of ketamine in October, had befriended an unknown man with whom he planned to set up a company in Hollywood, extolling the virtues of ketamine therapy.

“He was telling me this (ketamine) is fantastic, he wanted to go into business with this one guy in Glendale, or somewhere in the Valley,” said a close friend who had worked with Perry.

“Obviously this guy was giving him as much as he wanted, and with an addict, you can’t do that, it was terrible.”

“I think Matthew was even able to get ketamine without seeing a doctor,” the pal added.

The source spoke out as multiple arrests were made following an investigation into the actor’s death on Thursday.

Five people in total were arrested including Perry’s assistant Kenny Iwamasa and Jasveen Sangha, a woman allegedly known as the “Ketamine Queen” in certain circles, according to the New York Times.

Drs. Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez were also arrested as well as Erik Fleming, described as an acquaintance of Perry, according to the outlet.

Law enforcement sources told TMZ at least one doctor and several dealers who helped arrange and deliver ketamine to the star, who played Chandler Bing in the hit NBC comedy, have been taken into custody. 

The LAPD, DEA and US Postal Service each executed search warrants that resulted in the seizure of computers, phones and other electronic equipment to determine who supplied Perry with the illegally obtained ketamine that caused him to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub last October.

ABC News reported charges against those who allegedly supplied ketamine to Perry will be announced at a news briefing later Thursday, held by the US attorney for Los Angeles and the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Page Six revealed how the investigation into Perry’s death was set to lift the lid off a seedy underside of Hollywood drug dealing — particularly between doctors and actors.

Perry opened up about his use of ketamine therapy in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” saying he used the drug — originally used as a horse tranquilizer — “to ease pain and help with depression.” 

He explained that he would be hooked up to an intravenous line containing a “smidge” of Ativan and then a drip of ketamine for an hour. By the end of the session, Perry said, he “was like a f—ing pincushion.”

“Ketamine felt like a giant exhale,” he wrote. “They’d bring me into a room, sit me down, put headphones on me so I would listen to music, blindfold me, and put an IV in.” 

“As I lay there in the pitch dark, listening to Bon Iver, I would disassociate, see things — I’d been in therapy for so long that I wasn’t even freaked out by this. Oh, there’s a horse over there? Fine — might as well be … As the music played and K ran through me, it all became about ego, and the death of ego.” 

“And I often thought that I was dying during that hour,” he continued. “Oh, I thought, this is what happens when you die.

“Yet I would continually sign up for this s–t because it was something different, and anything different is good.” 

He described taking ketamine as “being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel,” though at the time of writing his book, he added: “The hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel. Ketamine was not for me.”

Despite his words, he continued to undergo ketamine therapy.

“When Matthew died, I knew right away, before it came out, that obviously it was the ketamine that was behind it,” the friend added.

“It’s like Anna Nicole Smith when she died [in 2007], many of these Dr. Feelgoods in Los Angeles will administer medication or pills many times when dealing with an addict and you have got to be very concerned.

“It’s clearly an abuse, and somebody should be responsible, Matthew’s death could have been avoided, you cannot give an addict meds, they can’t control their urges.”

Despite everything, Perry appeared coherent before his death.

“I dealt with him when sober and not, he clearly was alert before his death,” said the friend, “I could understand him in phone calls.

“No one ever knows, but he did not appear to be having any issues with being sober before his death.”

Perry passed away on Oct. 28 last year at age 54, at his rented Pacific Palisades, Calif., home. An assistant is believed to have found his body and alerted police.

Perry’s autopsy confirmed he died of “acute effects of ketamine.”

The autopsy report also listed drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine, a synthetic opioid, as other conditions that contributed to his death. The manner was listed as accidental.

The “Fools Rush In” star — who had been clean of drugs for 19 months — was on “ketamine infusion therapy” at the time of his passing.

His last treatment had been a week and a half before his death, indicating the ketamine in his system when he died had not been delivered in a medical setting.