AG: Corey Haim 'doctor shopping' days before death

Los Angeles, California (News Terupdate) - California's top law enforcement official will reveal details of how he says former child actor Corey Haim got dangerous drugs in the days before his death.

Attorney General Jerry Brown called a news conference for Tuesday to discuss "Corey Haim's 'doctor shopping' in the final weeks of his life," Brown's office said.

The coroner has not yet ruled on what killed Haim, 38, who died last month after collapsing at the Los Angeles apartment he shared with his mother.

Haim obtained drugs using prescriptions written under the names of 20 Los Angeles doctors in the past year, Los Angeles County Deputy Coroner Ed Winter said last month. The coroner subpoenaed medical records from those doctors, Winter said.

Although Haim battled drug addiction for decades, his manager said his death came when Haim "was making major progress" with a program to wean him from pills.

Still, Haim sometimes threatened to find other doctors to prescribe him drugs when his primary physician wouldn't give him what he wanted, manager Mark Heaslip said Monday.

"I would be the only one who could talk him out of it," Heaslip told CNN Monday night.

His doctor was providing pills only in one-day supplies in an effort to wean him, Heaslip said.

Haim's primary care doctor would constantly follow up with urgent care centers that he believed were writing prescriptions for Haim, Heaslip said. The doctor later gave the information to investigators, he said.

Haim got two powerful drugs from a pharmacy just 11 days before his death, a source with knowledge of the transaction told CNN.

Haim had a prescription for the muscle relaxer Soma and the narcotic pain reliever Norco filled at a pharmacy February 26, the source said.

Two days after Haim personally picked up the drugs, his primary care doctor called the San Fernando Valley pharmacy to ask about the prescriptions, the source said.

The coroner is waiting for toxicology results, expected later this month, before deciding if drugs were involved in the death of the 1980s teen movie actor, Winter said.

An autopsy revealed that Haim suffered from pneumonia, an enlarged heart and water in his lungs when he collapsed March 10, Winter said.

Heaslip said he and Haim's family are convinced his death was not from a drug overdose, but was perhaps a bad reaction to a single pill he took in the hours before his death.

The pills, prescribed by an addiction specialist, came with a warning that it should not be taken by someone with a heart condition or flu-like symptoms, both of which Haim had, Heaslip said.

"This kid was making major progress," Heaslip said.

His manager said that if Haim was cheating on his addiction program, he would likely not have admitted it to him since he would have dropped Haim as a client.

Brown, who is running for governor of California, has been quick to publicize what state drug agents have found as they probe Haim's death.

State investigators know that Haim obtained "massive amounts" of legal drugs "in what looks to me like a questionable manner because of so many doctors," Brown said.

"How many people go to 10 or 15 or 20 doctors and then run around to 10, 12 and more pharmacies to go fulfill them and sometimes two different doctors in the same day?" Brown asked.

Haim began his acting career in 1982 with his first television appearance in 1982 on the Canadian series "The Edison Twins." His first film role was in the 1984 American movie "First Born."

Haim also won rave reviews for his title role in the 1986 film "Lucas." Film critic Roger Ebert said of him at the time, "If he continues to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor."

His most famous role was in the 1987 movie "The Lost Boys," in which Haim played a fresh-faced teenager whose brother becomes a vampire.

In recent years, the actor was reunited with longtime friend and frequent co-star Corey Feldman in a reality show. "The Two Coreys" ran for two seasons on the A&E Network before it was canceled.

Source : CNN

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