Corey Haim Deemed "Poster Child" for Drug Addiction

State officials detail evidence of doctor shopping, say Lost Boy star obtained more than 500 doses in the month before death

Corey Haim couldn't help himself.

That's the word from California Attorney General Jerry Brown, who today labeled the late teen idol the "poster child" of prescription drug abuse and outlined Haim's regimen of "doctor shopping" to secure ample amounts of prescriptions in the run up to his death last month.

Brown's office launched its probe after Haim's name surfaced in connection with a prescription-drug fraud ring operating in Southern California.

And the biggest bombshell? The License to Drive star apparently thought he had a license to shop, obtaining 553 doses from seven different physicians all within the space of a month.

Enough to kill a horse. Or a Lost Boy.

From Feb. 2 through March 5—five days before his fatal collapse at his mother's home—Haim had managed to stockpile 149 tablets of Vicodin, 195 tablets of Valium, 15 tablets of Xanax and 194 tablets of Soma, Brown said.

"Legal, prescribed drugs can be just as dangerous as street drugs, and doctor shopping can be deadly," said Brown.

The 38-year-old actor, who had a history of substance abuse dating back to his child-star beginnings, used his seven different prescriptions to collect the drugs from seven different pharmacies. Or as Brown laid out Haim's M.O.:

"Corey Haim goes to a doctor, then he goes to another doctor, and says 'I need a prescription.' And he repeats this process seven times."

Haim also had an illegal prescription pad, allowing him to write his own permission slips by forging physicians' signatures.

Both doctor shopping and stealing prescription pads are violations of California law, but rarely if ever result in prison sentences.

"This is an epidemic," said Brown, adding that his office hopes to get doctors to sign up for a voluntary database allowing them to check if patients are seeing other doctors to stem the practice.

Haim's mother, Judy, who previously said the coroner told her son died of pulmonary congestion, could not be reached for comment on the A.G.'s report. An official cause of death has not yet been released, pending toxicology results.

—Additional reporting by Marcus Mulick