Present meds, village chief told

LOPEZ

The Cebu City barangay official who initially tested positive in a drug test conducted during last Thursday’s barangay assembly was told to present a list of medications that he took for maintenance.

“I called him (Busay barangay chairman Amilo Lopez) to tell him to go to the laboratory where he needs to declare the medicines that he took,” said Dr. Alice Utlang, chief of the Cebu City Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (Cosap).

Utlang said the medicines will be sent to the Department of Health’s (DOH) accredited drug testing laboratory in Manila for confirmation.

Lopez earlier denied using illegal drugs and disclosed that he is under medication due to hypertension.

He earlier showed the press his maintenance medicines such as Ranitidine, Clopidogrel, Raproxen, Metaloc and Mezartan which he said he took hours before he submitted himself for testing during the third Association of Barangay Council’s quarterly meeting last October 20.

Lopez also laughed at first when Utlang informed him about the initial screening results and thought that Utlang was just joking.

“It destroyed me, my family and Barangay Busay,” he said.

Utlang also didn’t discount the possibility that the medications mentioned by Lopez showed up in the initial drug test.

Former Busay barangay chairman Eliodoro Sanchez, who accompanied Lopez in a press briefing, said Lopez is willing to undergo another drug test to disprove the previous result.

But Utlang said “there is a certain duration of time” where the presence of illegal drugs can be visible in the urine sample.

She said that is why they don’t announce the date of the drug tests.

“If it was announced and you are a user, then you can avoid testing positive by not using drugs ahead of the test,” Utlang said.

She said the confirmatory test results will come out after a month.