A registry for meth offenders?

Sex offender registries are in place in nearly every state and are now nationally coordinated (details here and here), Mike Coan, a Georgia state representative, brings a new spin to the registry idea through this commentary:

Sex offenders … must register with the state Department of Corrections.  Residents can check a Web site to find out whether sex offenders live in their ZIP code.  With the growing problem of methamphetamine abuse and crimes related to it, we must now take the same steps to “out” offenders who bring this dangerous drug into our communities. That’s why I have introduced legislation to create the Methamphetamine Offender Registry, which would be administered by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation….

The registry is necessary because the production, distribution and use of this powerful street drug is the source of so much crime, ranging from robbery, theft, forgery, child abuse and neglect to a host of violent offenses….  Just as sex offenders do irreparable harm to children, meth abusers also harm innocent children.  The addiction to this street drug is so powerful that addicts neglect their families, spend all their wages buying meth and behave extremely erratically, sometimes abusing children and spouses….

Information is power, and when residents have the ability to find out who lives in their community — whether it is a sex offender or a meth offender — they can make better decisions about how they live their lives.  Gov. Sonny Perdue has declared meth abuse to be perhaps the worst scourge on Georgians of all income levels today. I believe a meth registry is one more step we can take to help combat this problem.

UPDATE: Gideon here at a Public Defender notes this interesting report from Connecticut, which discusses registry laws and notes that Kansas, Montana, and Oklahoma require violent offenders to register.  Gideon asks: “Why not require all offenders to register?”