Last month, federal prosecutors indicted five people for the overdose death of a celebrity the previous year. Three have pleaded guilty so far, and this month, a trial date was set for the other two. Many of the details certainly reveal heinous behavior, but the case makes clear that prohibition itself bears the most responsibility.
On October 28, 2023, Matthew Perry—the actor best known as Chandler Bing on the long-running sitcom Friends—died at his Los Angeles home. The county medical examiner announced in December that Perry's death primarily resulted from "the acute effects of ketamine"; the full autopsy indicated that he drowned in his hot tub when a sizable dose of the drug depressed his breathing and caused him to slip into unconsciousness.
