The use of differential mobility spectrometry at low pressure coupled to liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC‐vDMS‐MS) was investigated for the analysis of 13 drugs of abuse (DoA) including the following: cocaine, ecgonine methyl ester, cocaethylene, benzoylecgonine, norcocaine, tramadol, isomeric pairs of metabolites; O‐desmethyl‐cis‐tramadol and N‐desmethyl‐cis‐tramadol, and cannabinoids: Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabidiol, 11‐hydroxy‐Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, 11‐nor‐9carboxy‐Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, and 11‐nor‐9carboxy‐Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol glucuronide. Different parameters were optimized for isomeric separation, such as LC mobile phase composition (20%–100% methanol acetonitrile and isopropanol, flow rate: 8–100 μL/min) and DMS separation voltage. Methanol and acetonitrile significantly affected the compensation voltage of the analytes and improved DMS separation. A short trap/elute LC‐vDMS‐SIM/MS screening method of 1 min was developed to quantify 11 drugs of abuse (except THC/CBD), in addition to a 4‐min LC‐vDMS‐SIM/MS method to identify and quantify five cannabinoids including the isomers THC/CBD and three THC metabolites. THC is the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis and is a controlled substance in comparison to its isomeric counterpart CBD; this highlights the importance and challenges to resolve these isomeric pairs by analytical techniques. The signal responses were linear over a concentration range of 0.005–10 μg/mL for the DoA and 1–1000 ng/mL for cannabinoids. The intraday and interday precision were better than 12.2% and accuracy better than 115%. Urine samples from subjects who tested positive for THC and/or cocaine during roadside drug testing were evaluated to assess the performance of the methods LC‐vDMS‐SIM/MS and LC‐MRM/MS. Results show that the developed LC‐vDMS‐SIM/MS method presents similar performance to LC‐MRM/MS with improved sample throughput.