CANADA PERSPECTIVE

Ottawa, May 28, 2026. Forty-one months in federal prison: this is the sentence handed down against Kenneth Iwamasa, Matthew Perry's personal assistant, for injecting the Canadian actor with the dose of ketamine that ended his life in October 2023. The conviction, handed down Wednesday by a US court, closes the federal prosecution against five individuals who have admitted to playing a role in the death of the Friends star.

For Canada, this case resonates with a particular tone. Perry was born in Toronto on August 19, 1969, to a Canadian mother and an actor father. Raised partly in Montreal, he had maintained a claimed attachment to his roots throughout his Hollywood career. His death, which occurred in the hot tub of his Los Angeles residence, sparked a wave of lasting emotion in the country, amplified by the global popularity of the Friends series, in which he played Chandler Bing for ten seasons.

The Globe and Mail notes that Iwamasa's conviction marks the judicial conclusion of a procedure involving five people, including doctors and intermediaries accused of fueling the actor's ketamine addiction, a dissociative anesthetic diverted for recreational purposes. US authorities had described this supply network as deliberate exploitation of a vulnerable celebrity.

In Canada, media coverage emphasizes the human dimension of the case as much as its judicial aspects. Perry had publicly spoken about his decades-long struggle with addiction in his 2022 memoirs, presenting himself as a survivor capable of inspiring others in difficulty. The outcome of his story – killed by a substance he had sought to use under medical control to treat his addictions – constitutes a painful illustration of the limits of the US system for treating dependencies for many Canadian commentators.

The question of access to ketamine for therapeutic purposes, in full swing on both sides of the border, also fuels a broader debate. Canadian clinics now offer structured protocols for ketamine-assisted therapy for resistant depression. The Perry case draws attention to the risks of inadequate regulation when wealthy patients circumvent official medical channels.