Morrisey signs bill into law increasing criminal penalties for drug dealers in WV

Gov. Patrick Morrisey on Thursday signed into law a bill to drastically increase criminal penalties for dealing and transporting certain types of drugs in West Virginia.

Senate Bill 196 — dubbed Lauren’s Law in honor of a Morgantown woman who died in 2020 after accidentally overdosing on drugs laced with fentanyl — passed the Legislature during the last days of the 2025 regular session.

The bill introduces mandatory minimum sentences into state code for transporting cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into West Virginia and removes alternative sentencing options — like probation or home confinement — for those who are jailed on those charges.

It also increases sentences against those charged with manufacturing, delivering or possessing with the intent to deliver a Schedule I or II narcotic or meth from one to five years up to three to 15 years. 

Anyone who is charged with those crimes who has more than five grams of fentanyl, among other quantities of other drugs, could face 10 to 30 years in jail.

The law uses weight requirements that can make someone delivering a drug containing any fentanyl to be charged with conspiracy. It also includes language for the crime of delivering a drug that results in someone’s death, with increased penalties for failing to render aid to someone who is overdosing.

During the bill signing on Thursday, Morrisey said he believes the law will be crucial to enhancing enforcement against drug crimes and deterring drug dealers from operating in the state.

“In West Virginia, we all know we’ve had a long and arduous history fighting substance abuse. It goes back many, many decades, and it’s ripped through our communities like a vengeance. It’s destroyed many lives. It’s laid waste to generations of West Virginia,” Morrisey said. “Lauren’s Law, we think, can be instrumental in helping our state deal with the drug epidemic. It’s part of the enforcement side of the equation, and it takes direct aim at the drug dealers.”

But advocates for people who use drugs and people in recovery worry that the law will do more harm than good. 

Oftentimes, people who use drugs are also dealing them as a way to pay for their addictions. And it’s not uncommon for individuals to be unaware that the drugs they are using or dealing contain fentanyl, advocates told West Virginia Watch upon the passage of SB 192 in the Legislature.

This bill, the advocates say, could open up low-level dealers to heightened penalties that will make it even more difficult for them to get help for their disease.

There is no data that shows stronger drug penalties anywhere curbing overdose or fatality rates related to the drug epidemic.

Instead of seeing higher criminal penalties that could have unintended consequences for people with substance use disorder, those in recovery and addiction spheres would like to see the state focus more on public health investments that are proven to lessen the impact of addiction on communities.

But SB 196 was only one of a handful of bills that was passed by the Legislature this session concerning drugs or addiction. And none of the bills that did pass related to public health initiatives, treatment for addiction or support for people with substance use disorder.

“The answer [to the opioid epidemic] is in public health investment. The last few years, we’ve seen our state — thanks to COVID federal funding — make additional investments in public health resources, in getting opioid reversal drugs into the hands of people who are using and people who care about them, and we’ve seen the fruits of that,” Sara Whitaker, the senior criminal legal policy analyst at the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, told West Virginia Watch earlier this month. “SB 196 has none of that, and it’s not going to change anything for the better.”