Life in a sleepy little town

I have lived in town for a few years now and I am always amazed at what happens or doesn't here. I have been a member of the Fire Department for a few years and get to see the dirty underbelly of life here. One of those little dirty secrets is the number of alcohol related assaults, accidents, and "psychiatric" issues that I have personally had to respond to. In just the last 2 days we have had 4 calls in town and 2 of those calls were alcohol related. One was was a potential drunk driver who rear ended someone on Route 2 and then a Psych call at a camp in town.
On these calls I have been spit at, had blood splattered on me, sexual innuendo's hurled at me, and been physically assaulted. This happens nearly every weekend and no one discusses it. Our ambulance service is self supporting from the fee's that are charged for using the ambulance but I know that on many of these calls we never receive a dime in return for us going out and picking up these people.
There is so much focus by everyone on drugs but the elephant in the room is just ignored. Granted the state has changed their Drunk Driving laws and made them more onerous. The state has also increased the drinking age to 21 and made it so that those under 21 can't drive with any alcohol in their blood stream. In my eyes these are not proactive strategies to deal with the problems.
As a society we have put so much focus on things like suppressing weed and the war on drugs but are ignoring what causes a lot of other issues for people. I have been in the Emergency Medical Service's for over 10 years now and I can think of not one person that I have had bring to the hospital from smoking a joint or joints. I am not advocating that marijuana be legalized but I have to tell you that Alcohol causes many more problems in my eyes than marijuana.
This would give the impression that I am a teetotaler but I'm not. I just don't think that getting blinding drunk and starting a fight at a family get together or driving home drunk is a good idea. In my eyes this is a public health crisis that isn't being handled correctly and is contributing to the problems that we are facing as a country.