This week brought news of another celebrity’s premature death. Corey Haim, one of the teen stars of 1987’s vampire flick The Lost Boys, died March 10 in California at the age of 38. Published reports have speculated about the role prescription medication may have played in his death.
But regardless of whether drugs ultimately played a role in Haim’s tragic death, they certainly played a damaging role in his life. In a 2004 interview with the British tabloid The Sun, Haim talked about the intersection of Hollywood and drugs.
“I was working on Lost Boys when I smoked my first joint,” he said. Marijuana, it seems, only whetted his appetite for harder stuff, which in turn initiated a downward spiral that would dog Haim the rest of his life. “I did cocaine for about a year and a half, then it led to crack,” he said. Unnamed depressants or tranquilizers came next: “I started on the downers which were a h— of a lot better than the uppers because I was a nervous wreck,” he confessed. “But one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day.”
In a 2007 interview with ABC, Haim said, “I feel like with myself I ruined myself to the point where I wasn’t functional enough to work for anybody, even myself. I wasn’t working.”
As late as 2008, longtime friend and fellow Lost Boy alum Corey Feldman said that drugs had hampered their relationship during two seasons of filming the A&E reality series The Two Coreys.
Any way you want to parse this story, it’s tragic. But a couple of things seem clear. As has been the case in the lives of many child and teen actors, fame and fortune at a young age often prove to be a combustible, destructive mix.
But there’s another connection I want to make here. Reading Corey’s account of his addictions, I can’t help but wonder if marijuana was the catalyst that launched his downward spiral. That first high wasn’t high enough, it seems, and others soon followed in quick succession.
As many voices in our culture continue to proclaim that marijuana is harmless, no big deal, we would do well to remember that for some people, it may very well open a gateway to soul-sapping, life-ruining addiction.
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