Cold sufferers, meet Big Brother. Again.

The Iowa Senate passed a bill Monday that would log Iowans’ names and addresses in an electronic database when they purchased cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Iowans could get a run-around on the database, but they’d be required to score a prescription for the drugs first. Ostensibly, these hurdles would prevent potential meth makers from gathering all the ingredients needed for their home-cooking labs.

The best part: it’ll come at a cost of $300,000 to taxpayers to create, and a cost of $50,000 each year to maintain. Although the legislation is dependent on federal funds to start, if that funding disappeared after the first two years, Iowa would be stuck footing the bill.

Meth is a serious drug that creates serious problems. It strains communities and it destroys lives. The average citizen is better off when meth is not present.

The problem is, where does it stop? Ordinary citizens are inconvenienced, at the least, and at worst, criminalized, by the legislation. Meth users are more resilient: they use fake IDs. They do a better job of shopping around. They subvert the system. They’ll do what they have to do to get their fix — forcing them to rework their supply chain isn’t going to put an end to the problem, just reroute it.

Fighting meth is important. A database of people with colds isn’t. Please don’t waste taxpayer money on one.