13.6 Million to 1

To keep things in perspective:

 

158.4 billion total pieces of mail moved through the US mail system in 2013.

11,580 pieces were seized by postal inspectors as drug-related in 2013.

Rougly one of every 13.6 million pieces of mail is seized as drug-related.

 

79% of all seized parcels contained marijuana.

 

2011 seizures: 5,908;   2012 seizures: 9,640;   2013 seizures: 11,580

 

Do the math. Understand the odds. Relax.

Maintain good OPSEC anyway.

 

Sources:

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of-facts-and-figures.htm

http://www.kgw.com/story/news/local/special-reports/2014/12/08/oregon-marijuana-shipped-us-mail/20119361/

 

Edit: I deleted two incorrect statistics. Yes, it would certainly be far more helpful to know the total number of parcels mailed containing drugs and use that to calculate the seizure rate of drug-containing parcels. But there's no reliable data that I've found. The fact that it's so easy to create a parcel containing drugs which is virtually identical to "normal shit" and blend in with the millions of other pieces of mail means that using the total mail volume is a reasonable (though obviously not exact) calculation of the odds for relatively standard envelope mail.

The further away from a piece of "normal mail" (standard size flat business envelope, sent domestic, first class) you get, the less reliable the odds would get. All kinds of factors like product odor, size of parcel, destination, origin, international or domestic, etc., would determine how far away from the given odds that particular piece of mail would rate.

I think it's safe to say that a standard envelope that appears like an average piece of junk mail containing a small amount of odorless drug would likely have the same rough odds as stated above.


Comments


[19 Points] None:

[removed]


[15 Points] throwaway4486789:

As someone who has taken a statistics class, this is completely wrong.

I can tell you without whipping out my handy dandy calculator that the odds of a marijuana parcel being seized greatly exceed 1 in every 17.3 million. Do you really think 17.3 million parcels of marijuana are being / have been sent and only one person out of those 17.3 million parcels has been pulled? No.

You can't make an assumption of the odds of a drug parcel being seized without knowing the amount of drug parcels that make it through unnoticed(you can't). The best indicator of knowing the odds of your parcel being seized/lost is to get a sample size of 10-20 vendors of one substance and seeing how many of each of their shipments never made it to the customer, and even then your numbers will be off due to human error / lies / some vendors are just shit at stealth.


[8 Points] ZombieMushroom420:

Keep in mind that only a tiny fraction of mail going through the system contains drugs; the rest is just normal shit.

So if we only look at packages that actually contain drugs, the percentage of searches/seizures would be much, much higher.

Even so, it's still really fucking safe.


[5 Points] CocaineNose:

<n/a>


[2 Points] ifound_molly:

Thank you so much for this!


[2 Points] None:

gamblers fallacy


[1 Points] None:

:) Math is the best, no matter how much I slept in HS.


[1 Points] durgsrbad:

Highlights just how much vendors and buyers alike bullshit about non-deliveries.


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] None:

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