Prince Harry faces battle over US visa after admitting taking cocaine, marijuana & psychedelic mushrooms in memoir Spare
PRINCE Harry will fight for his visa application tonight after admitting he took coke, weed and magic mushrooms.
Lawyers from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation are taking on the Department for Homeland Security.
They say the 39-year-old's past drug use should have disqualified him from entering the US under federal law and that his visa application should be made public.
A court filing also accuses the dad-of-two of "bragging" about his past drug taking.
It comes after Harry wrote in bombshell memoir Spare that cocaine "didn't do anything for me" when he took "a line" aged 17.
But he added: "Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me."
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After taking magic mushrooms, the Duke said he started hallucinating and thought a bin in a bathroom was staring at him before growing a head.
The DHS argued in a court filing: “[The case] comes about in the main because HRH [His Royal Highness] voluntarily – and for immense profit – admitted in writing to the elements of any number of controlled substance violations.
“Indeed, some say HRH has approached the point of bragging and encouraging illegal drug use.
“The Duke of Sussex did so despite the fact that it is widely known that such admissions can have adverse immigration consequences for non-citizens and despite employing preeminent legal advisers on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation, believes it is “preposterous” that Harry’s visa application should be kept private given how vocal he has been using drugs.
Mr Gardiner said: "This really matters to Americans.
"This case raises many issues as two whether or not people are given any special treatment in coming to the United States and whether or not the rule of law is applied equally.
“The American people expect their leader to enforce immigration law strictly and this should apply to anyone entering the US including royals like Prince Harry.”
HARRY'S DRUG CLAIMS
What has the Duke of Sussex said about his past drug use?
In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry admitted to taking cannabis, cocaine and magic mushrooms throughout his life.
Speaking of his cocaine use aged 17, he explained: "At someone's house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.
"It wasn't very fun, and it didn't make me feel especially happy as seemed to happen to others, but it did make me feel different, and that was my main objective.
"To feel. To be different."
Harry said he took psychedelics both for fun and therapeutically over the years,
After taking magic mushrooms, the Duke said he started hallucinating, and thought a bin in a bathroom was staring at him before growing a head.
The Duke also made several admissions to using cannabis, including at Kensington Palace and as a pupil at Eton.
He revealed he smoked a spliff and watched a Disney film after his first date with Meghan Markle in 2016.
Harry also admitted to enjoying a bit of bud after putting the kids to bed at his home in Montecito, California.
He wrote: "Late at night, with everyone asleep, I'd walk the house, checking the doors and windows.
"Then I'd sit on the balcony or the edge of the garden and roll a joint.
"The house looked down onto a valley, across a hillside thick with frogs. I’d listen to their late-night song, smell the scented air."
Harry wrote that under the influence of drugs, he was able to see there was “another world where the red mist didn’t exist”.
He said drugs helped him both escape and “redefine” reality.