Matthew Perry- “I wonder how much this moron will pay”

[GoodieMcTwoshoes]

Sorry if there's a recent thread, it doesn't show up in search.

Apparently his doctors took advantage of his vulnerability and discussed things like “I wonder how much this moron will pay.” Matthew Perry: Two doctors among five charged over ketamine-related death | Evening Standard

That's awful. :(

Fentanyl has substituted heroin, at the present time finding organic heroin in the American streets is very difficult because it’s all fentanyl, why? Because it’s made in labs, much cheaper/easier to produce and way more profitable, problem is that it’s 50 times stronger than heroin so the risk of overdosing is massive (hence the reason junkies are dying in masse in the US last ten years and the infamous “opiate epidemic”). This said fentanyl is entering Europe slowly, mostly in the western countries. In a few years heroin will be something from the past, vintage stuff only available in Eastern Europe, Arab countries etc…where the poppies are grown.

It’s totally awful and sad. Complete case of avarice and self-serving behaviour by all those around Perry. Yanbu. They all sound awful - from the Ket Queen to the slimy assistant.
Hope they all go to prison for a long time.

What were you having done at the dentist?

Yeah it is the USA you can always find someone willing to prescribe dodgy medicine!

not just Hollywood!

I was given oxycontin every time I had some sort of "major" dental work such as a root canal, tooth extraction etc.. My dentist would hand me a small plastic bottle with 10 pills "just in case you're in pain the next few days", truth is I was never in pain but I ended taking the pills just for recreation purposes. Yes, I was young and foolish.

Iranians use opium as one might have a cup of tea, according to an Iranian I know.
Taryok (?) I think he called it. Edit : Taryak
When Iranian revolution happened, a new wave of “Smoking heroin” came in, as many fleeing Iranians smuggled it in to London 1979

As it was smoked, ( vapourised) it appealed to people who naturally were wary of injecting .
In those days there were no needle exchanges that far back.
( worked in a drugs charity )

During the 19th century Hong Kong turned into a British colony and opium started to come into the country along with the tea trade, Victorian London had plenty of opium dens run by the Chinese. Plenty of Brits would go to this places and it was also smoked (vaporised, never injected), plenty of photographs and drawings that document these places. Rumour is people have been getting high since prehistoric times.

Opium dens in London weren’t like that of San Francisco ( a friend wrote a couple of books on it - they were more like a back room in someone’s house in London.
There is the Dore engraving supposedly of London, but the pipe looks very wrong.

A great grandfather as a young man worked in Limehouse 19th C as a boat builder ( tall ships back then) and did smoke at Limehouse and said it was “ the closest thing to heaven”

He died long before I was born so couldn’t ask him about it, but it was part of family history ( he had a gambling habit too) so can’t have been much fun for his poor wife and 7 children when money was tight.

In U.K. Laudanum seemed to be the preferred way.

Bizzarely in U.K. law it’s still technically illegal to own an opium pipe and lamp and yen hok - no other paraphernalia is “illegal” here, just specifically Chinese opium smoking stuff.
( Roots in a century old racism?)

I'm not sure that's true. The writing was on the wall long before he was famous. Given barbiruates as a baby and followed by an alcohol problem during his teen years. He was hungry for fame, if he hadn't got it I can see that he would have gone down the addiction path a lot sooner and with less money would have probably taken far riskier street drugs that are often cut together with other nasty things. There are often spikes in drug deaths where bad batches are in circulation etc. I'm actually surprised he made it to the age he did, albeit he'd had a few brushes with death along the way.

He was horribly exploited though and it goes to show that money can't buy happiness or keep you safe. I'm sad to read of the death of any drug addict. I think with perry it's just such a juxtaposition to see him as chandler, larger than life looking healthy to then to know what was going on in his personal life. Same as the guy from Glee. Total shock to see him die as he looked totally healthy and no one had any idea he was a drug user.

I agree, he already had addiction issues at times before Friends. Going by his book, he nearly gave up his drugs permanently (allegedly) towards the end of his life, then got hooked on this 'therapeutic' drug.

I get that people are addicts, but for instance Amy Winehouse, she had so much money she could spend on treatment but still didn't really engage with it, even after she realised she had a problem, rather than believing what her dad supposedly said. If I had that sort of money I would throw a lot of it at getting well.

It seems like Matthew did, but at the end he chose a pretty fringe therapy that probably wasn't the best for him, plus had unscrupulous professionals working with/on him.