HARRY'S FRIENDS ARE NO STRANGERS TO DRUGS

Next in line - Many within the young prince's closest circle have
spent time in rehab

Of course Prince Harry experimented with cannabis. He would have felt
left out otherwise.

The young royal is the baby of a circle of royals and aristocrats who
make the most of the temptations afforded to them by their wealth and
privilege.

Harry seems to prefer the local pub at Highgrove to the ultra-hip
bars and clubs favoured by his older brother and the fast-living old
Etonians he likes to hang out with but both he and his elder brother
William have enjoyed exuberant holidays in Rock.

The Cornish seaside village has become known as "Kensington-on-Sea"
because of the "snob yobs" (as the local MP puts it) and girls who go
there to surf all day and relax together at night.

Even before he was marched off to one by his father, Harry will have
heard all about what the inside of a rehabilitation clinic is like
from his slightly older friends and relations.

The Hon Nicholas Knatchbull, the great grandson of Earl Mountbatten
of Burma, a godson to the Prince of Wales, and Prince William's
mentor at Eton, spent time at the expensive Farm Place in Surrey last
summer. He was once arrested for possession of cannabis but released
with a caution after assuring police that the drug was for personal
use only. The 20-year-old was also treated in Arizona.

His parents, Lord and Lady Romsey, were later said to be keeping him
under curfew at Broadlands, the Hampshire home where the Queen and
Prince Philip spent their honeymoon. Nicholas will inherit the =A3100m
estate one day and the title Earl of Mountbatten of Burma. He has
been on holiday with the Prince William and Prince Harry several
times.

In 1999, Tom Parker Bowles, 26, the son of Prince Charles' friend
Camilla, was caught offering to supply cocaine to an undercover
reporter while working for a film company at Cannes. The following
year the Queen's 22-year-old cousin, Lord Frederick Windsor, was
photographed spreadeagled on the floor at the London club House after
attending a film premiere. He had already admitted taking cocaine, to
the dismay of his mother Princess Michael of Kent.

Lord Freddie has worked as a male model and an investment banker but
is now in the final year of a classics degree at Magdalen College,
Oxford, and claims to have forsworn drugs.

It's not just the boys in Harry's extended circle who go a little too
far occasionally. Tara Palmer Tomkinson, 30, famous as one of the "It
Girl" socialites in the Nineties, was asked not to join a cruise with
Prince Charles and the boys after it emerged she had been treated for
addiction at the Meadows Clinic in Arizona. "I could never do just
one line of coke and I could never have just a sip of champagne," she
said. "I would drink the bottle." Her parents Charles and Patti are
among the closest friends of Prince Charles, and Tara has taken a
close interest in the development of the young princes.

The Meadows Clinic also helped Camilla's niece Emma Parker Bowles,
26, after she confessed to being an alcoholic who was fond of
cocaine. She spent 35 days there. Emma was also addicted to valium,
and is said to have attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in
Chelsea. Her father, Richard Parker Bowles, also fought alcoholism.
"Drugs can affect everybody," he said. "It doesn't matter whether you
are from Buckingham Palace or a council estate."

A short, sharp shock

=46eatherstone Lodge, the rehabilitation centre in South London where
Prince Harry received his "short, sharp, shock", is run by Phoenix
House, who operate treatment services in Sheffield, Tyneside, the
Wirral, Glasgow and elsewhere.

* Phoenix House, a charity, is one of the best known rehabilitation
organisations in Britain. It has more than 30 years experience of
helping substance users and works closely with the courts, probation
and health services.

* Their website says: "Our experience lies in working with drug and
alcohol users who have a long history of problematic substance abuse
and who often feel socially excluded from the community in which they
live."

* The Prince of Wales is the charity's patron. He has visited some of
their centres. After one visit, he said: "I particularly noticed the
way the programme sought to address the residents' lack of
self-esteem and to assist them to think of themselves as people with
something to contribute to society."