Paramedics attended 27 per cent more ice-related incidents in regional Victoria in the past financial year, and ice use in metropolitan Melbourne jumped by 10 per cent, according to new research.

But drug and alcohol research body Turning Point said the figures still pale in comparison to the number of paramedic call-outs due to the misuse of alcohol and prescription drugs.

"In 2013-14 in metro Melbourne, we had 1,237 ice-related attendances and in regional Victoria 295," Turning Point Associate Professor Belinda Lloyd said.

The increase in call-outs for ice incidents were not as high as in previous years.

"We've seen a slowing down of the rate of increase than we've seen in previous years, so the numbers are higher than we've seen in previous years but that degree of increase has slowed down," she said.

Associate Professor Lloyd also said healthcare organisations, law enforcement agencies, the Government and community have made good inroads in tackling the issue of ice.

"Any reduction in these kinds of increases is certainly encouraging but we still need to get the message out around the potential harms associated with use of these drugs to minimise impact on individuals and the community," she said.

Paramedics said the situations they confront in the field, involving ice use, were unpredictable and terrifying.

"We've had paramedics punched and kicked," Ambulance Victoria's acting general manager of emergency operations, Mick Stephenson, said.

"These are a very complex group of patients to manage, given that they often take four or six other adults to hold them down when they're behaving in that way."

Mr Stephenson can recall numerous situations where paramedics were at risk because of out-of-control patients on ice.

"A paramedic was treating a patient, everything seemed to be going well, and then the patient just rolled onto his side and kicked the paramedic in the face before becoming extremely agitated and then attempting to destroy the rear of the ambulance," he said.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said drug-affected road users do more damage than drink drivers.

"In 2013 in Victoria, there were 39 ice-related road fatalities as opposed to 24 alcohol related road fatalities," Mr Abbott said.

The Federal Government said they would be working to reduce the scourge of ice on the community.

"One of the things we want to do is do the research and do the development work needed so that we can get the cost and the speed of roadside drug tests down to the sort of cost and speed that we've got with roadside alcohol tests," Mr Abbott said.

Alcohol still a bigger issue for paramedics than ice

Turning Point stressed alcohol still accounts for the highest number of drug-related ambulance call-outs, which increased to about 16,000.

To put this in context, Victorian paramedics attended about 45 patients a day because of alcohol last financial year, compared to an average of four people daily for ice.

"[Alcohol use] is a very significant issue for us," Mr Stephenson said.

"It can go from just being a few cases a day, up to 150 on the busy weekends and public holidays and so on, so it's often got a lot of other things related to it, not just alcohol.

"There's often violence, there's trauma, there's family violence. It's a much greater issue than just the use of the alcohol."

Mr Stephenson said the community had failed to deal with alcohol abuse adequately.

"Clearly there can be more done but I would have thought that for the largest part, if we educate our children in a different way and we expose them to alcohol use in a different way and we don't accept that this is just a part of our normal culture and society then we'll do a lot better."

The second most common class of drugs responsible for calls was benzodiazepines — tranquilisers prescribed to help relieve stress and anxiety, and used as sleeping tablets.

After this, cannabis accounted for about six call-outs a day and heroin about five.