The spatiality of the war against drugs in Mexico has been poorly studied. Under this scenario, the author of this article proposes an analytical route to examine how the urban space in the border city of Tijuana has been re-meaningful and rewarded under its representation as an insecure, violent and dangerous site in the context of the Mexican anti-narcotic strategy. This re-presentation coincides with the city’s urban and demographic expansion and its inclusion in continental drug distribution channels. After inspecting these processes and their effects on the symbolic economy of the city, the article investigates the consequences this has had on the development of the political identities of its residents. By identifying forms of extreme vulnerability of Tijuana’s inhabitants, the war on drugs has organised, above all, an area in which the exercise of unlimited forms of violence is constant and within which the city’s political life has been minimised, with serious consequences for the exercise of the rights of its inhabitants.