Did They Molest the Meth?

The Drug War Chronicle reports that Tennessee has started treating meth offenders like sex offenders, entering their names and locations into an online database so they can be properly shunned. The main rationale for registering sex offenders, as opposed to other felons, is that they are especially likely to commit new crimes. As I've argued, there is little basis for that assumption, but at least the idea is to protect people (children in particular) from predatory criminals. The meth offender registry, by contrast, is simply "another tool to help fight the war on meth." It cannot even be defended as a way to identify neighbors who are apt to set up potentially hazardous meth labs in their homes, since it includes people convicted merely of possession.