Corey Haim Issued Hundreds of Pills Days Before His Death

I don’t imagine there are a whole lot of shocked gasps out there from people hearing Corey Haim’s death has been officially attributed to prescription drug abuse, but the situation should be causing outrage and action as a response to its newest addition to high-profile addicts losing the battle to stay afloat.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the California attorney general announced Tuesday that Haim had managed to get prescription drugs from seven different doctors and multiple pharmacies. The number of pills stashed, an incredible 553 doses of Xanax, Valium, Soma and Vicodin.

As we’ve been commenting, the problem isn’t just for celebrities, but the publicity for this high profile death should be urging some real action in California, where attorney general Jerry Brown seems to be taking exception to the problem, saying though Haim “is the poster child for the problem, there are a lot of doctor-shoppers and most of them aren’t celebrities.”

Clearly this case isn’t one of accidental addiction; Haim’s drug problems have ranged the spectrum of mood altering and body destructive, so the idea that he, a well-known drug abuser, could so easily be issued so many drugs raises more than a few red flags for the industry.

The state has been cracking down on illegal prescription drug rings in California for months now, and the incident caused the attorney general to urge CA doctors to “check with” the California prescription drug-monitoring database so as to avoid “getting duped” by other would-be abusers, as Haim’s doctors claimed to have done.

But where’s the accountability here? “Checking with” a database doesn’t do a whole lot for those doctors who don’t take much ownership of the problems associated with these prescriptions in the first place.

While other states are pushing ahead in mandatory reporting for painkiller prescriptions, it appears California is lagging behind on the legislation needed to truly tackle its growing drug abuse problem at the source. I understand the state’s funding problems may outweigh its other priorities, but the message they send to those looking for drugs without strings, both from within and without the state, is one of neglect and consequent free indulgence.

Tags: celebrity addiction, celebrity drug addiction, Corey Haim, prescription drug abuse, prescription pill addiction