19 Aug 2024 - Matthew Perry’s sad demise

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G’day… Claire Kimball here. 

Last week’s poll on how you felt about Dr Rachael Gunn - aka Raygun - hitting the big-time pointed me to this week’s topic - more on that in a second… 

In that poll, fewer than 10% of Squizers said they were deep into the story. The biggest group (40% of respondents) was where I sat - ‘I’ve had a bit of a laugh - but easy on’. But after the week that was, I confess I found it hard to watch Dr Gunn’s Insta post asking for the media to leave her family and friends alone…

How did all that inform my selection of the arrests that have been made following Matthew Perry’s death, including 2 doctors, his assistant, and an alleged dealer prosecutors have called the ‘Ketamine Queen’? It feels like another case (although with much more dire consequences) where what’s happening on the public-facing surface is very different to what those in it are experiencing.

After those arrests last week, I had questions, so I did a bit of research and found some answers. Another reason to bring this up today is my fellow Squizer Kate Watson is a Friends fan. She lent me his autobiography last year - it goes over in terrible detail the struggles he had with addiction. So if nothing else, I know she’ll appreciate this. 

For this week’s News Club picks: 

1. What happened in the final days of the beloved actor’s life? The New York Times has taken the unsealed court and medical examiner’s documents and pulled together a compelling overview. The gist of it is “he appeared to become increasingly reliant on ketamine, and eager to find illegal sources of it after doctors at a local clinic had refused to increase his dosage.” 

2. Ketamine is a hallucinogen approved for use in the US as an anaesthetic for surgery. It’s also used (legally) as a therapy for depression and (illegally) as a party drug. How that all works is covered in this NBC News explainer. 

3. How did it come to this? I mentioned his autobiography a moment ago - Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing is a good read. Even if you’re not much interested in him, it’s good for the perspective it offers on addiction. 

4. And what is it about Hollywood and doctors who seem more like drug dealers? The Guardian’s Marina Hyde picked that theme up in her weekend column. “The most dangerous position anyone with the means can get themselves into is one in which no one can say no to them,” she writes. 

May any aspiring megalomaniac take that as a warning…

Your friend in news

Claire Kimball

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