For the first time, this study has established an attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) method for fast qualitative analysis of methamphetamine, ketamine, heroin, and cocaine. Characteristic peak method was chosen as the qualitative analysis criterion of this method. Due to the lack of proper qualitative identification criterion, FTIR method has long just been used for fast qualitative screening in drug analysis. In order to expand its application in forensic sciences, two qualitative identification criteria of characteristic peak method and soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA) classification method were investigated and compared. A total of 516 calibration and 864 prediction samples were used for method development and validation. For characteristic peak method, five to eight peaks in the range of 2 500~650 cm-1 with relative high intensity and interference-free from common cutting agents were selected as the characteristic peaks. When characteristic peak method (all of the characteristic peaks should be detected) was used for the qualitative analysis of 646 validation samples, the positive detection rate was 98.1%. A SIMCA classification model was constructed based on 516 calibration samples, consisting of 7 PCA models for methamphetamine HCl, ketamine HCl, ketamine base, heroin HCl, heroin base, cocaine HCl, and cocaine base. The classification results of 646 validation samples showed a recognition rate of 95.4%, and a false rejection rate of 100%. Therefore, the results of both the characteristic peak method and the SIMCA method were reliable and accurate. It is easy for the characteristic peak method to be used by local police officers after simple training, thus suitable for popularizing. In comparison, as the building of SIMCA model needs the collection of large number of representative calibration samples and the use of professional mathematical software, the SIMCA method is not suitable for popularizing. Therefore, the characteristic peak method was chosen as the criterion method for fast qualitative identification analysis. The ATR-FTIR method that is based on characteristic peak method will greatly increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of drug qualitative identification analysis.