Lawyers to demand Harry's visa application to see drug-taking answers

Lawyers will today demand the government releases Prince Harry’s US visa application to find out how he answered questions on drug-taking after admitting to taking cocaine, marijuana and mushrooms

• Prince Harry’s history of drug use is to be the focus of a court case in Washington
• The Heritage Foundation sued the government after its FOI request was denied

Lawyers will challenge the government in a Washington DC federal courtroom today over its decision not to disclose the reason why Prince Harry was admitted into the country despite admissions of illegal drug use. 

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative political research group, has filed a lawsuit against the Department for Homeland Security, aiming to determine whether correct procedure was following in the decision to allow the Duke of Sussex into the US.

Under US law, admission of drug taking can be grounds to dismiss a visa application. Prince Harry admitted to taking cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms in his memoir, Spare, in 2023.

After a Freedom of Information Act request was rejected, the research group now demands the DHS release of his visa application from March 2020 to find out how he answered questions on prior drug use.

The case is due to be heard by a federal judge on June 6 at 2.30pm in courtroom 17 of the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The government will also be represented. 

Prince Harry arrives the Rolls Building of the High Court in London, Britain June 6, 2023

The think tank is looking to see how Prince Harry answered on the visa application (pictured) 

The Heritage Foundation is to argue that ‘widespread and continuous media coverage’ has brought into question whether the duke was properly vetted by the government.

But the DHS said swift release of the documents would not be in the public interest and questioned how ‘widespread’ the media coverage of the issue had been.

Can drug users be banned from visiting the United States? 

US officials can stop foreigners who have committed drugs offences entering the country even if they have never been arrested and charged.

Under US rules, suspected drug abusers applying for a visa may be required to answer additional medical history questions and also take a medical exam to prove that they are not still a drug abuser before being allowed to enter the country.

In high-profile cases where celebrities who are known to have taken drugs want to come to America, they have been invited into the US embassy in London to take a drugs test. 

Musician Pete Doherty was banned from the US due to drug-related arrests. TV cook Nigella Lawson was also banned from flying to the US after she confessed to taking drugs.

Both parties are set to argue the case in a federal court for the first time in Washington DC on Tuesday.

It is unclear when the court will make a decision over whether the documents can be released.

Lawyers will be interested in two questions in the US DS160 visa form.

One asks: ‘Have you ever been a drug abuser or addict?’

The other asks: ‘Have you ever violated, or engaged in a conspiracy to violate, any law relating to controlled substances?’

In his memoir, the duke said cocaine ‘didn’t do anything for me’, adding: ‘Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.’

He also admitted to hallucinating during a celebrity-filled event in California and smoking cannabis after his first date with Meghan.

And the Duke has also spoken about his ‘positive’ experience of psychedelic drug ayahuasca, saying it ‘brought me a sense of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold on to for a period of time’.

Harry made the comments in an interview with therapist Dr Gabor Maté, an outspoken supporter of decriminalising drugs who has allegedly used Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness.

The Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit argues that US law ‘generally renders such a person inadmissible for entry’ to the country. 

Sam Dewey, counsel representing the Heritage Foundation, told Sky News ahead of the hearing: ‘The government has taken the position that ‘there’s nothing to see here’.

‘We’ve taken the position that no, if you look through all the details of his admissions, you look at the drug laws, you look at the laws on admissions, there’s a real serious question as to whether or not he should have been admitted.’

Prince Harry admitted to taking drugs in his memoir Spare, released at the start of the year

The Heritage Foundation published the legal complaint in the US in May of this year

In England, Prince Harry is today due to give evidence at London’s High Court in his case against the publisher of British tabloid the Daily Mirror.

He is suing Mirror Group Newspapers for damages, claiming journalists were linked to unlawful methods of information gathering.

Harry became the first Prince to testify in front of a British court in 130 years when he arrived on Tuesday after skipping the first day of trial on Monday.

At the end of May legal experts suggested US border officials would have been within rights to block the Duke of Sussex’s visit to London for the case – although it was unlikely they would.

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