SHOTS BEFORE DYING

Anna Seen Pounding Booze, And Her Room Was Full Of Pills

It's a scene similar to those that reportedly preceded her death. In
these photos from 1995, the party girl balances a shot glass inside
her T-shirt ... ... then dramatically empties it ... ... without
using her hands. Yesterday Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, had a
tearful interview on 'Good Morning America,' in which she blamed
drugs for her daughter's death. Anna Nicole Smith's final days were a
booze-fueled frenzy that ended in a hotel room so stocked with meds
that it resembled a "pharmacist's shop," according to reports.

While an autopsy performed yesterday could not immediately determine
what killed Smith, witnesses who saw the troubled bombshell in the
days before her death say she was partying and falling-down drunk.

A bouncer at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, where Smith
later died, said the centerfold was drinking into the early morning on Tuesday.

"I saw two guys walking her out. She was pretty much all trashed. She
was messed up. She couldn't walk on her own. ... Her bouncer was on
one side and her lawyer friend on the other," the bouncer said.

Just hours before she died, Smith was back at the Hard Rock's 24-hour
Center Bar in the middle of the casino floor.

A bartender named Mike told the Daily News that Smith was tossing
back double shots.

"Her eyes were droopy. It looked like she was really, really drunk.
She was slurring her speech. She looked plastered," he said.

Mike said fans surrounded Smith that night, snapping pictures of her
as she laughed and downed drinks.

"She talked to a few people but she was mostly concentrating on the
drinking," he said. "She was wasted out of her mind, but that's the
Anna Nicole me and my friends have grown to know."

Smith's hard-partying ways appeared to extend into her posh suite on
the sixth floor of the hotel.

A source told Star magazine that entering the room was like "walking
into a pharmacist's shop." Outfitted with a canopy bed, tall plants
and leopard-print hangers, the room was filled with prescription
medication including Xanax, Provigil, Vicodin and "a ... lot of
methadone," Star reported.

During a press conference yesterday, Seminole Police Chief Charlie
Tiger confirmed that the hotel room contained "no illegal drugs, only
prescription medicine" but would not reveal the types of drugs or to
whom they were prescribed.

Tiger also said the surveillance tapes at the hotel had not detected
any unusual activity and that there was no evidence that a crime had occurred.

According to Dr. Joshua Perper, the Broward County medical examiner,
the autopsy was able to exclude as the cause of death any physical
injury, blunt-force trauma or asphyxia - meaning she didn't choke to
death on her own vomit, though Smith did have a bruise on her back from a fall.

"This is clearly a sudden, unexpected and unexplained death," he
said, describing his work as having to solve a "medical puzzle."

The former Playmate had suffered from a stomach flu in the days
before she died, Perper said, and did have "subtle" abnormalities in
her heart and intestines that will need to be examined microscopically.

While she had no "intact" pills in her stomach, toxicology tests will
need to be completed, lasting three to five weeks, Perper said.

"We do not exclude any kind of contribution of medication to the
death, and this will have to await the results of the toxicology," he said.

Virgie Arthur, Smith's mother, said on "Good Morning America" that
she believes her daughter's death was the result of drug use.

"And I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung
around with," Arthur said. "She wouldn't listen."

With Tamer El-Ghobashy in Montgomery, Tex.

[Sidebar]

Anna Nicole's Personal Pharmacy

Among the prescription drugs reportedly found in Anna Nicole Smith's
death room:

Methadone: A powerful opiate painkiller, it is in the same drug
category as morphine and codeine -- often used to help heroin addicts
beat their habit. Causes severe drowsiness and can potentially
interact with hundreds of other drugs.

Provigil: A secret favorite of pilots and hospital doctors working
graveyard shifts, this central nervous system stimulant keeps users
alert and awake. Side effects include anxiety, nervousness,
depression, irregular heartbeat and dozens more.

Xanax: Prescribed for depression, anxiety disorders and panic attacks
- -- and, occasionally, fear of open spaces -- this brain-bending
benzodiazepine drug is notoriously habit-forming.

Fentanyl lollipop: A powerful narcotic painkiller often given to
cancer patients, especially children. A berry-flavored one sold under
the name Actiq sells for about $25 a "pop" on the street.

Julian Kesner