[barik]

I worked for the Department of Homeland security as a contractor in 2009 to develop software for exactly such a use case. The operation for such merchandise is to ship products to basically an arbitrary address (sometimes knowing that the actual resident is on vacation, I suppose), and then have someone on the delivery end intercept the package. In these cases, the only realistic option for officials is to intercept on or during delivery since the origin address is usually completely fabricated.

Part of my role was to assist in the warehousing system to intercept (during transfer to verify that the shipment is in fact illegal) anomalous mailings (much in the way credit card companies try to identify anomalous purchases as fraud). The illegal materials will be shipped in all sorts of interesting ways. For example, we had a package that appeared to come from Kellogg, but the merchandise was actually at the bottom of each of the (packed and closed) cereal boxes.

Unfortunately, DHS has quite a backlog, so there are currently entire warehouses in the US whose sole job is to secure drugs, guns, and other materials until officials can come inspect the packages. Of course, sometimes they are not intentional violations of the law (for instance, certain food and animal products can't be shipped to the US). But if you ever in such a warehouse, it is truly a sight to behold.

[Falling3]

I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm saying that the risk-reward ratio is way too skewed for me to give it a second thought.

[droithomme]

In this subthread we were evaluating the legal scenario where that those receiving cocaine in the mail, regardless of whether they had knowledge or intent of it, should be arrested.

Under this premise, cases of people who do not ever receive drugs in the mail is not relevant.

Statistically, one relevant question to ask is, of those who have cocaine bricks delivered to their front porch, what percentage were actually involved in receiving cocaine compared to those who were a drop point for a pickup involving two other unknown parties.

As Barik (a contractor with direct investigative knowledge) pointed out above, using strangers' homes as drop points for cocaine brick delivery is common in the US in the context of illegal drug deliveries by mail. It is entirely possible it accounts for the vast majority of cocaine brick by mail deliveries.

If this accounts for more than an inconsequential portion of cocaine brick mail deliveries, then it is utterly unjust and unreasonable to advocate or defend laws that criminalize mere possession and not knowledge of what you have, and/or intent.

[barik]

Oh, absolutely. It is not something that a regular person would ever need to worry about, since statistically the odds of this ever happening to any one person are extremely low (and even if it did, the person may not even know it because of procedures such as the above). But it's important enough at a national level that security officials are interested in tackling the problem.

So yes, it's possible that drugs have been mailed to you without you knowing it. In rare circumstances (especially if you just moved into that address, for example), you might be arrested to figure out what's going on. But it becomes hyperbole to suggest that you will automatically be charged and put in jail because of a random drop shipment (though I'm sure some HN person will find a counterexample just for the sake of doing so).

[stickfigure]

So I won't automatically be charged and put in jail, but I might be arrested.

This is supposed to be reassuring?

[barik]

> This is supposed to be reassuring?

I guess I'll worry about it when and if it happens to me. But no, it's certainly not something I think about on a day to day basis, just as I also don't worry that someone might steal my car in the middle of the night and commit a crime with it -- another scenario in which, yes, you may also be arrested or at the very least questioned.

I'm inclined to believe that such arrests are quite rare, but that's just speculation, and I'm open to evidence to the contrary.

[385668]

If I find myself in possession of a cocaine brick that I did not ask for, I will indeed worry. The point that the article made (as a tangent, admittedly) in regards to cocaine possession is that, should that situation arise, I can't take my cocaine to the police without risking arrest myself, and that's absurd.

[Symmetry]

When evaluating whether a law is just we shouldn't worry about whether we are likely to run afoul of it unjustly ourselves, but rather what percentage of the people who are prosecuted under it will be prosecuted unjustly. And in this case it seems possible that that percentage might be unacceptably high.