Drug market changes dynamically causing many analytical challenges for police experts. Among illicit substances there are synthetic designer products but also herbal material. Plant material is usually in fine- cut or powdered form, thus difficult to identify. For such fragmented material classic taxonomical identifica- tion methods using anatomical and morphological features of the plant cannot be employed. The aim of the study was to develop an identification method of the powdered material with employment of multidimension- al data analysis techniques. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was chosen as a method of data exploration. The study was conducted on four plants controlled in Poland: Salvia divinorum, Mitragyna speciosa, Psychotria viridis and Calea zacatechichi. The compatibility of grouping features of selected species was compared in two variants: chemical and elemental composition. In a first variant, GC-MS chromatograms of extracts were ana- lyzed and in the second, elements composition with the AAS and the ICP-MS techniques. The GC-MS method, based on the qualitative interpretation of results, allows for clear differentiation of samples with regard to their species affiliation. Even the plants belonging to the same family Rubiaceae, P. viridis and M. speciosa formed homogeneous and clearly separated clusters. Additionally, the cluster analysis was performed, as a method con- firming sample grouping. Keywords: narcotic plants, chemometrics, identification, gas chromatography, elements