Prince Harry’s camp has suggested that he admitted to drug use when applying for an American visa.
Harry has come under pressure from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation to say whether he made such a declaration, after writing about taking cocaine, marijuana, ayahuasca, and magic mushrooms in his memoir, Spare. The Heritage Foundation says his visa application should be published to ensure no “favors” were granted to the prince.
Now, sources close to Harry appear to have briefed the Daily Telegraph—one of the few outlets with which the Sussexes still do business—that he was “truthful” on his visa application.
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Harry’s book also suggested that he has continued to use illegal drugs since moving to America in 2020, and he has been vocal about using ayahuasca, the controversial (and illegal) Amazonian psychedelic, as part of his therapy.
In one interview, Harry admitted he used the drug “recreationally” before realizing “how good it was for me.”
He said: “It was the cleaning of the windshield, removal of life’s filters. It removed it all for me and brought me a sense of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold onto for a period of time.
“For me I started doing it recreationally and then started to realize how good it was for me. I would say it is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and the pains of the past.”
The Heritage Foundation has made a freedom of information request to see Harry’s visa application. It is likely Harry would have immigrated to the U.S. on an “O” visa that lasts three years, and he will likely have to admit to any drug use in the meantime when renewing.
Samuel Dewey, a Heritage Foundation lawyer who is making the freedom of information request said: “We just don’t know how Prince Harry has been treated and that is why we are asking these questions.”
Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said: “The drug issue is a huge question. Applicants to the U.S. have to say if they have used drugs. If they say yes they have to fill out a much more detailed form. Sometimes they will be denied entry.
“For him to have got in may have required some kind of high level intervention and we don’t know where that came from.
“What we are asking is whether he was open and transparent with the application, whether there were any particular favors given, was he treated differently to everybody else. We believe in the rule of law.”
