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Drug counselor who delivered ketamine dose that killed Matthew Perry gets two years
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 16 May 2026
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What’s your point
Guy killed a guy, gets jail
Perry killed himself
my point is that jail won't solve anything.
Ah, yes, the “punishment is pointless” argument. Look, no one is arguing against more rehabilitation and safety in prisons, but criminal behavior must incur punishment, especially when it seriously harms other people. Why? Because when people (including the families of those people) are harmed, they expect justice, and part of that justice is knowing that the person responsible for harming you will suffer a consequence. This is not an eye for an eye; we make certain punishments are reasonable, proportionate, and not cruel. But when there’s no punishment, people do not feel justice has been done and some of those people will seek to punish criminals themselves (vigilante justice). Having a neutral third party implement justice is always better than when victims do it.
People who make this “punishment is pointless” argument never really think about the people criminals have made suffer. I know you think you do, but you don’t. You’re caught up in how bad the prison system is, and you’re right to be upset, but not to the exclusion of empathy for victims of crime.
Let me put it to you this way. Say you’re a parent, and you’re pushing your baby in a stroller, when a drunk driver hits you. You’re seriously injured, requiring surgery, months of rehab, and perhaps physical disabilities that will never go away. Your baby is dead. Now, that drunk driver isn’t sent to prison; instead, they’re put in a rehabilitation center, where they receive substance abuse counseling, therapy, etc. The accident makes them realize they have a problem, and within a year, his therapists are convinced he’s safe to be released back into society (with ongoing outpatient treatment and monitoring for five years after that). Their recovery is genuine and they do not reoffend. Within three years, they’re living a happy life. Meanwhile, three years on, you’re still dealing with chronic pain related to the accident and are still in grief counseling over the loss of your child. If you found out how the person who did that to you was doing, how would you feel?
People deserve to suffer for causing the suffering of others. Like it or not, it’s part of the unspoken social contract.
this isn't how our society operates anyway
uh... it's good that people do better for themselves and start making better decisions
says who?
eye for an eye is proportional
Oh, in this case it will. It will stop a corrupt guy who makes money out of distributing drugs of dubious origin under the guise of safe recreational use for recovery purposes, from further putting others at risk. For a drug counselor it should be obvious that you should not distribute drugs to addicts under (almost) no circumstance.
Jail isn't what's doing that, revoking his license does. The jail time is just an added slap on the wrist to make the people close to Perry feel better (which is absurd considering a guy literally died, retribution doesn't change that.) It doesn't actually solve anything.
Which is why we won't jail any drug dealers anywhere, or any criminal, for that matter, as it doesn't solve anything.
Of course, drug dealers, famously reticent to distributing drugs without license.
That's ignoring the point. Retributive justice is inherently reactive. It doesn't improve upon any of the circumstances or motivations leading to someone committing a crime, thereby limiting it to a response only after it happens. Criminals don't commit crimes simply because they were "born that way". They do it because their life experiences led them to either a) believing they had to commit the crime to improve their situation, b) believing it's justifiable in their own warped sense of right and wrong, or c) severe mental illness. There's nothing in those causes that can't be accounted for or treated beforehand to prevent the act from occurring at all. All jail time is doing is putting them in a pressure cooker that will inevitably lead to the people sentenced being even further handicapped in their ability to function in society.
Mind you I'm not against separating criminals from society for an appropriate amount of time entirely. It's just that if the primary motivation with their sentence is punishment, you shouldn't expect anything greater than a neutral outcome.
Careful there, you are getting dangerously close to pre-crime justifications. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, drug distribution crimes are at the top on risk of re-offending (only bellow financial fraud and related economic crimes, mind you). Now, the other side of the coin is that most people who need mental health care the most, due to risk of violence or harm to self and others, are the ones less likely to willingly seek for it. Now, the US justice system sucks, and isn't more than a slave making machine. However, in this particular case, the only way to ensure the person is not a danger towards others is to pass them through that faulty system. Because it is the only mechanism the system has at hand. I agree that more activism is necessary for a judicial system reform for humane treatment of convicts, and better access to social protections and mental health care opportunities outside of the system. However, that is the ideal world, this is the real world. And right now, just removing their license does nothing. Statistics tells us that he will just switch to be a life coach and keep distributing drugs to addicts, just illegally. Legality has never stopped anyone from doing something.
I doubt he'd make this kind of misstep again, jail or no.
It was not a misstep. He gave ketamine to Perry in the first place in order to get him hooked on it while counseling about his addiction with other drugs. He is not a poor repentant fellow who made a honest mistake. He is a corrupt health staff member that, without the proper behavior correctional support, would probably do it again if given the chance.
I wouldn't call the American prison system correctional support
Neither would I, hence the qualifiers. Doesn't change the argument though.
so putting this person in jail does no good.
You... Completely ignore why this person wouldn't do it again. If there is no punishment then why wouldn't they?
This whole argument is stupid honestly. Stop being disingenuous.
I think most people would feel pretty bad about contributing to someone's death, and punishing them doesn't change anything
That's a noble thought. However, do realize that even most, means that some people will not feel bad about killing people. The problem is that now you have to predict with certainty whether any one given person will repeat the offense in the future. A thing that all humans are pretty shit at.
Let's say, in an hypothetical case, we let a murderer free. There's no equivocal culpability, we know they did it. But, since you're advocating for no prison. Then, if he reoffends, you go to jail instead. Would you feel as sure about advocating for a murderer?
It's easy to presume rehabilitation if you're not the one who will suffer the consequences. Also, spoken as someone who has never had the opportunity of interacting with an antisocial personality type.
putting people in cages is wrong. we can be better
I agree. However, it has no bearing into this particular case. Truth is that you don't know this person. You are not their forensic psychologist. You cannot claim in any certain way whether he will re-offend or not. All of that is for the system that is in place to decide. Hopefully with some level headed professionals making those decisions. Activism for more humane treatment of convicts and stronger mental health care to reduce the slave state of the judicial system is praiseworthy, I'm with you on that. But that change is gradual and involves a ton of changes on society and culture. But “don't jail anyone ever”, while it might sound nice and noble, without its social care counterpart, is folly. You will have to jail people from time to time, even if it is to make sure they get mental health care. The number one risk factor with violence prone patients is that they don't take treatment willingly and tend to fail to show up to care, even if it is available.
if this person had the wealth of bezos or Zuckerberg or musk, they'd never have been convicted. we should all be so free.