Glad that somebody who really knows the DR get it, in another thread some other posters are announcing por los 4 vientos that without the drug laundering money the DR economy would have crashed by now.
Once again, you're exagerating and misrepresenting the comments.
No one has said the DR economy would have crashed without drug money.
It has been stated...quite correctly...that drug money has a positive effect on the Dominican economy in a similar way the remittances do.
But most every ecomomy has effects of drug money in one form or another.
The US, for example, has a net outflow of cash from drugs consumed, therefore those cash resources are not only diverted from other area of the economy, the net cash leaves. The DR on the other hand most likely more drug money coming in than drugs are consumed with the cash leaving, so there is a positive cash position.
If drugs were just legalized and legitimized, those cash flows would be much more onvious.
One can understand the cash folws from drugs without moralizing on their use or the problems they cause.