Recovery advocates ask Colorado law enforcement to work with them to end addiction

September is National Recovery Month. Last year, 109,000 Americans lost their lives to preventable overdoses.

Mobilize Recovery is an initiative made up of people in recovery and others impacted by addiction and overdose. Their goal is to bring communities and policymakers together to have conversations about recovery solutions.

The Mobilize Recovery bus will visit about 30 cities across the country, providing resources like naloxone and fentanyl test strips.

Co-founder Ryan Hampton showed CBS News Colorado the hundreds of messages written on the exterior of the bus.

"We're asking people to sign the bus all across the country with messages of hope. A lot of us have lived in the shadows for so long in our recovery status. Now we're recovering out loud," said Hampton. "We want people as to read messages from other folks on this bus and see that recovery is for every community, every person."

Hampton says naloxone needs to be common in every single public and private place such as corporations, libraries, schools and community organizations. Communities need more access to recovery support services. He says law enforcement has to be a good partner.

"They need to be working more with the recovery community and listening more to the voices of those who are impacted by addiction and overdose. We can't treat this problem in the criminal justice system. It has to have public health solutions," said Hampton.

Denver District Attorney Beth McCann joined Hampton at the Mobilize Recovery event to discuss the law enforcement side of finding solutions. He believes steps are being made in the right direction.

McCann told CBS News Colorado the amount of fentanyl they're seeing in Denver is overwhelming.

The city has peer navigators, who are in recovery themselves, in the court system for low-level possession cases. They help get people get into recovery. The diversion program has a recidivism rate of about 5%.

McCann says their focus right now is on distribution rings and trying to stop the flow of drugs into the city.

"It's a two-pronged approach. We have people that we believe should be treated with public health efforts and the treatment of addiction, but we also want to get those who are preying on them," said McCann. "Some of the lower-level dealers are addicts themselves and it's a challenge."

If McCann can prove who's dealing lethal drugs, she can charge them with distribution resulting in death. Possession of fentanyl between 1 and 4 grams is now a felony. She says her office is starting to see those cases come through.

McCann worries the supply of drugs will never end while there's so much demand.

"We can put them in jail and prison, and we do, but they get replaced pretty quickly by someone else," said McCann.