WORRIED CHARLES MARCHES BINGEING HARRY OFF TO REHAB

Teen Prince Confesses To Alcohol, Drugs

LONDON -- Call him a royal dad who's hoping a short, sharp shock will keep
his youngest son away from any more drugs and booze.

Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, admitted this weekend that he
forced 17-year-old Prince Harry to spend a full day at a rehabilitation
clinic after the teen admitted to a two-month binge of drinking and
marijuana-smoking.

Last summer's move by the desperate royal dad, apparently determined to
save his motherless son from further woes, was only this weekend reported
by British newspapers.

The outing, a casual affair during which the pair chatted with addicts at
Featherstone Lodge in South London, was prompted by Harry's confession that
he'd spent two months drinking and smoking marijuana at parties and in a
rundown shed at Charles's Highgrove estate.

Charles was initially alerted to his son's behaviour by estate staff who
noticed a strong smell of marijuana. Harry has not used drugs since, news
reports said.

One night, the teen confessed, he was so drunk that when the French owner
of a local pub ordered him to leave, Harry cursed at him and called him "a
frog" -- and was promptly barred.

Police were called to the scene and the prince was at the centre of their
investigation.

Harry's escapades are only the latest reported by a press that have eagerly
follows the lives of Harry and his older brother, William, since the death
of their mother, Diana, in a 1997 Paris car crash.

Harry won the sympathy of some 2.5 billion people around the world who
tuned in to Diana's televised funeral to watch the young boy walk the
entire procession behind his mother's coffin.

More recently, the public was jarred by reports that the government had
asked both teens to submit plans for their own funerals -- apparently a
delicate bid to avoid the public wrangling that followed their mother's death.

Much speculation has taken place over the happiness of two young boys left
motherless as teens and alone with a father whose mistress was known to
have caused their mother distress.

The princes' proximity to drugs has been questioned publicly for the past
three years, since the then-24-year-old son of Camilla Parker Bowles,
Charles's girlfriend, admitted taking cocaine. Both are good friends of Tom
Bowles.

The incidents that prompted the clinic visit took place during a period
when Charles was often away on business and William was out of the country
travelling for a year before he began his university studies.

During school holidays, Harry often stays at Highgrove on his own.

"This is a serious matter which was resolved within the family and is now
in the past," a spokesman for Charles said last night.

"There is no point in hiding the truth. These are the facts -- let people
make their own judgment," Charles told aides.

Marijuana use is illegal in Britain and the legal drinking age is 18.