Levi Jordan Wells Bertanees (26) was jailed for four years in May last year after admitting the class-B importation charge before the Dunedin District Court.
However, he has been released after his first appearance before the Parole Board last month.
Bertanees told the board ''he was having financial problems, he had heard that you could make money importing and selling drugs, and so he went on Google and learnt how to purchase ecstasy from overseas''.
He said he was unable to budget and had a car debt at the time.
Panel convener Mary More noted Bertanees was caught before any of the drugs could be sold.
''He is grateful he did not have the opportunity to sell them,'' she said.
Despite Bertanees' sentence end date being March 2022, Ms More said his release did not pose an undue risk to the community.
Bertanees came under scrutiny when Customs inspected a package that came from the UK in October last year and found it to contain 392g of ecstasy.
It was addressed to his home but under a different name.
On November 1, Customs staff delivered the package to the house where Bertanees signed for it.
When police raided the property soon after, the man had opened the consignment and had the MDMA bagged up, ready for sale, along with gelatine capsules, digital scales and other drug paraphernalia.
Police said the haul had a street value of $156,800.
Bertanees was a minimum-security prisoner and the reports on his behaviour were ''all positive'', the Parole Board said.
He had lived in a self-care unit since March and was working on the dairy farm.
Bertanees had recently been approved for shopping outside the wire, Ms More noted.
He had completed the Short Rehabilitation Programme and a tikanga course.
''He tells us that he has learned the damage of drug-selling in both his whanau and in the community,'' Ms More said.
Defence counsel Sarah Saunderson-Warner stressed Bertanees was not a drug user and had completed all the programmes he could behind bars.
He had significant support in the community from his whanau and partner, the board acknowledged.
His parole conditions included:
- To attend any programme directed by Probation.
- To attend a tikanga programme as directed by Probation.
- To attend budgeting counselling as directed by Probation.
- To live at an address approved by Probation.
- To abide by 10pm-6am curfew for the first three months.
