Another post originally written on Reddit, to answer a few of the endless questions posed by worried individuals (to the extent that they can be answered).
What are the chances that I will get caught?
We Don't Know
The authorities are being uncooperative by not releasing the exact numbers of people they have prosecuted for purchasing from DNMs. Nobody can tell you that only 0.56% of buyers ever run into a legal issue. What we do know is that the vast majority of buyers never have any sort of issue with law enforcement. Is there a risk? Absolutely. Even with the best planning and choices bad luck can interfere. Your package might be the one that is torn open by a sorting machine, or the vendor you are ordering from might be being watched by police as they drop off a package with your name on it. If you demand a 0% risk, stick to the liquor store.
What are the chances that an order from [place] to [place] will be intercepted?
We Don't Know
Unfortunately, customs and vendors have not collaborated to figure out the exact percentage of packages that get captured coming in from each country. The risks will also vary depending on where you are living and what is going on at the time. Is your president ranting about murderous drugs arriving from a certain country? You might expect there to be more focus on mail coming from that country.
We do know a few things. Generally mail within a country has a very low risk of interception. There is very little attention paid to it and it is almost never seriously inspected. Crossing borders brings mail into contact with customs, who are focused on trying to detect things. For the lowest risk stick to domestic mail. For international mail, do some research to see what the hot countries are for your location. There are some universal risky countries (looking at you NL), but the rest will vary from location to location.
If [amount] of [drug] is discovered will I get in trouble/will there be a controlled delivery?
We Don't Know
The answer to this depends entirely on your location. Unless you post your zipcode nobody can help you with it. Is your local police department overstretched or bored and looking for action? Have some drugs been effectively (or legally) decriminalized or are they considered considered a menace to be stamped out? Check your local news. Has [drug] been showing up at local high schools and is the police chief denouncing it at press conferences? Even a tiny amount might trigger a strong response if the authorities want to demonstrate that they are taking action. Know your environment and you will be able to understand the risks.
As a addendum up to these questions, if you are currently buying drugs in person you are already taking risks. It's not like buying from a local dealer is risk free. If you are buying small personal quantities I would go out on a limb and say that buying locally is the higher risk. Making a bust for a mailed order is an order of magnitude more work (dealing with the postal inspectors, getting a warrant to search the package, scheduling the controlled delivery, getting the anticipatory search warrant, getting a full search team together) than just pulling someone over after they meet with a suspected dealer and running a drug dog around the car. Unless you live in a suburban police state I think only one of these is likely to happen for a gram or two.
Some qualifications: this is only in regard to serious consequences such as being arrested or directly charged. You might get a seizure letter if you are attempting to import internationally, and there have been limited reports of law enforcement coming around for "talks" to scare buyers into admitting something incriminating. Obviously never fucking talk to the police. End the conversation and shut the door. If they persist talk to a lawyer.
Also Germany is a authoritarian police state and they can fuck you based on your name showing up in a database. Luckily most of the rest of the world has saner laws.