Lauren Cole’s parents, Michael and Cherie, attend a West Virginia Senate session that included SB 196 in April 2025. Credit: West Virginia Legislature
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Another group meeting at Lauren’s Wish is about to begin on Scott Avenue in Morgantown. Twice a day on weekdays, staff members of Lauren’s Wish Addiction Triage Center sit down with clients to lay out what each person needs that day.
Outreach manager Weston Miclette is just one of several members of the Lauren’s Wish staff tasked with serving as a bridge between clients and the help they may seek.
“The thing about Lauren’s Wish is that we give these people the chance,” Miclette said, nestled in his chair in the front room of the third-floor center. “These people, they may have had multiple chances, but we are that last resort.”
Lauren’s Wish Addiction Triage Center is named after the late Lauren Renee Cole, who died after taking a drug laced with fentanyl in 2020. The center’s office, drenched in pale colors and flowers, is located within Hazel’s House of Hope.
Lauren’s Wish is one of many services located within Hazel’s House. Other services include the Salvation Army, United Way, several outreach programs, and a warming center.
Lauren’s Wish is located within Hazel’s House on Scott Avenue in Morgantown, W.Va. Credit: Johnathan Edwards
The nonprofit triage center is not the only entity named after Cole. West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed Lauren’s Law, titled Senate Bill 196, on April 24.
Lauren’s Law is aimed at increasing penalties for several drug trafficking offenses, with specific notes regarding fentanyl-related issues.
“Today, we take a major step forward on enforcement, and at the end of the day, this is about sending a message to those drug dealers,” Morrisey said in front of the crowd that gathered for the signing of Lauren’s Law at the triage center.
According to Lauren’s Law, drug delivery offenses that result in the death of someone who took the delivered drug can carry a 10 to 40-year mandatory sentence. This is just one of several penalty increases included in the law.
Extended mandatory sentences via Lauren’s Law could limit the chance for those with substance use disorders to access places such as Lauren’s Wish and the peer recovery program.
While the increased penalties may keep dealers and other offenders off the streets, they also make it harder for offenders to seek treatment alternatives to incarceration.
As of 2024, West Virginia had more incarcerated people per 100,000 population than every founding NATO country, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
It is even more drastic when split by demographic, as 1,321 Black individuals per 100,000 in the state are in the prison system. The comparison to white individuals (302 per 100,000) and Hispanic individuals (142 per 100,000) is stark. These rates were collected in a 2021 study conducted by the Prison Policy Initiative.
With increased penalties in effect, including mandatory minimums for several drug offenses, the opportunities for people in prison to seek treatment could dwindle. Preston “P.J.” Lee Jr., WVU’s lead peer recovery program coordinator, is no stranger to how treatment can serve as an opportunity.
“The day-to-day for me is to help provide our peers in the emergency department with someone they can come to for technical assistance or help in career development,” he said.
Lee is another West Virginian in long-term recovery, spending his days as an outlet for others. The peer recovery program at WVU offers individuals a wide range of resources. Lee leads the charge in working with outside entities in the community.
“I also network with other departments in the hospital and outside of the hospital in the community, to help connect us to other places and help create working relationships with other places to make it easier to get people with substance use disorders some help,” he said.
The program runs out of the WVU Department of Behavioral Health and Psychiatry in Morgantown, and has continued to grow since launching more than five years ago. According to Lee, it is a growing resource in the north-central portion of the state that has snowballed, thanks to peers sharing their experiences with others.
“Once people start having some good outcomes with that, they then, in turn, tell their friends, ‘Hey, when I was struggling, I went over to the ER and they helped me out,’” Lee said.
Less than six miles separate the peer recovery program and Lauren’s Wish, two establishments with ample forms of assistance for those with substance use disorders.
Lauren’s Wish is providing immediate treatment services and assistance every day, regardless of the law. Whether it be a bed to sleep in, proper food to eat, or help in accessing other vital services, the triage center is a community resource dedicated to serving the memory of Lauren Cole.
Back at Lauren’s Wish, Miclette said he knows first-hand what a proper resource can do for someone in a time of need.
“We act as like that homestead for people. If you don’t have that safe place to go to, we [Lauren’s Wish] are that safe place… When I was using, I was living out of a car and that’s because I didn’t have anywhere to go,” he said. “If I had somewhere like Lauren’s Wish, I probably would’ve gotten cleaner sooner, probably would’ve stayed clean, and I probably wouldn’t have experienced so many relapses in my past.”
Lauren’s Law was signed on April 24 this year, marking the next step in combating the opioid epidemic in West Virginia. It is too early to tell what the long-term effects of the law might entail for resources such as Lauren’s Wish and the peer recovery program.
Alondra Molina contributed to this story.