Did you tell US authorities of drug use, Prince Harry asked

Anyone applying for a visa to live and work in the US has to declare drug use: an admission can lead to denial of entry.

Prince Harry has publicly admitted to drug use. Picture: Getty Images.

A conservative American think tank is urging the Duke of Sussex to reveal whether he admitted his past drug use when he applied for a US visa.

Prince Harry has written in his memoir, Spare, and elsewhere that he has taken drugs including marijuana, cocaine and magic mushrooms.

Anyone applying for a visa to live and work in the US has to answer the question: “Are you or have you ever been a drug abuser or addict?”

An admission of drug use can lead to denial of entry.

The television chef Nigella Lawson was banned from flying to America in 2014 after she admitted in court to using cocaine, although the ban was later lifted. The singer Amy Winehouse was refused entry twice because of drug use.

In a televised interview with a trauma expert last month the duke said the use of one hallucinogenic drug, ayahuasca, had “changed” him, saying its effect was like “cleaning the windscreen”. In Spare he wrote about smoking cannabis in the garden of Kensington Palace and while at school at Eton. He has also said that cocaine “didn’t do anything for me”.

The Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, has filed a freedom of information request to see the Duke’s visa application, saying that if he had answered the drugs question with “yes” he would have needed a waiver to be granted a visa. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to California in 2020.

Samuel Dewey, a lawyer, told the Mail on Sunday: “An admission of drug use doesn’t automatically ban you for ever. There is a waiver process and a lot of people get a waiver on a case-by-base basis. If Prince Harry was given a waiver, who authorised it? Was the correct protocol followed?”

The issue also has political ramifications. Immigration is likely to be a key issue in the presidential election. President Biden has been accused by the Republicans of having lax border controls.

Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said: “This is a much bigger issue than Prince Harry. It is about enforcing immigration law and ensuring that no one is above the law. Prince Harry is the tip of the iceberg.”

The Times