Corey Haim: Where Did His Prescriptions Come From?

Agent says Haim was trying again to get clean, despite drug-ring allegations.

ByABC News via logo
March 14, 2010, 7:51 PM

March 15, 2010— -- Actor Corey Haim had been working to get clean from prescription drugs in the weeks before he died, according to his agent, but his plea for help may have been no match for the dozens of prescriptions he had allegedly obtained from a cadre of doctors and illegal sources.

Autopsy results have yet to be released, but it is widely believed that Haim's death last week was caused by some kind of prescription drug cocktail.

"We know that Corey Haim used a lot of legal drugs, shopped a lot of doctors and went to a lot of pharmacies and, at least in one instance, got OxyContin from an illegal syndicate," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said.

Brown said Friday that he has linked Haim to an illegal drug ring in Southern California.

Haim's agent said his client had been working on his addiction problems with a doctor and that Haim told him two weeks before he died that he was drug-free.

But the agent also said Haim's mother told him that an addiction specialist treating her son had given him four drugs and, she believed, a reaction to the medications may have caused his death.

The prescriptions found in Haim's name in his mother's apartment contained serious drugs, Brown said. And Haim's name came up on multiple prescriptions in the state's system.

"My hunch is he was using massive amounts of these drugs," he said. "He had dozens of doctors, many, many prescriptions, using many, many pharmacies, more than a dozen."

Tiffany Shepis, a close friend of Haim's, told "Good Morning America" that she made the choice to distance herself from him and his addiction. She last saw him about eight months ago and said he looked good and had gained some weight.

"Corey only ever hurt himself," she said. "He never lied about his addiction problem."

Shepis said she never had any knowledge of Haim's involvement with the alleged prescription drug ring, but his penchant for prescriptions was no secret.

Haim, at one point, was taking as many as three dozen pills a day, getting the drugs from "regular doctors, hospitals, urgent care places," she said.

"I think it's fairly easy to get whatever you want, especially when you're an actor."