Between the ill effects of avian flu and the impact of the state’s new “free range” chicken mandate, it has been harder at times to buy a dozen eggs in Colorado than an ounce of pot.

And yet, our legislature, which banned eggs laid by caged hens effective last Jan. 1 — is now poised to make it even easier to buy pot.

House Bill 25-1209, pending in the state Senate after passing out of the House last week, would double the amount of marijuana that could be sold in a single transaction at the state’s pot shops. A user already can buy an ounce at a time and stay high all week. Apparently, that’s not enough to the bill’s sponsors, Democratic state Reps. William Lindstedt of Broomfield and Jenny Wilford of Northglenn, and Democratic state Sen. Julie Gonzales of Denver.

And it’s only one of the bill’s provisions easing up on the regulation of pot’s purveyors, who are said to be hard pressed amid a saturated market. HB25-1209 also relaxes regs for security screenings for shop operators; lowers the number of surveillance cameras, and so forth. It is explicitly intended as a shot in the arm for what we’re told is an ailing industry.

In other words, it puts the bottom line of pot peddlers above the interests of Colorado’s children.

It also adds insult to injury. Earlier this month, lawmakers killed a bipartisan bill to safeguard kids from marijuana. That effort, Senate Bill 25-076, would have added some much-needed rules on packaging, dosages and sales of high-potency pot — which all too often winds up in the backpacks of Colorado middle-schoolers even though the law says it’s not supposed to.

Big Marijuana’s mighty lobby, which carries a lot of clout with ruling Democrats at the State Capitol, wasn’t about to let kids’ welfare stand in the way of profits.

The battering Colorado has taken since the legalization of retail marijuana over a decade ago is by now well documented — from the soaring calamity on our highways to the mental health crisis afflicting our youth. And there’s a growing body of hard science on the devastating physiological impact of THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient, on young, developing brains.

There’s also new data suggesting societal tolerance for marijuana paves the path to harder drugs. Colorado’s Common Sense Institute released a report last month that found states like Colorado with permissive marijuana laws had overdose rates involving deadly narcotics like fentanyl that were over a quarter higher than in states where pot sales still are illegal.

In that context, it is beyond belief a proposal as patently reckless as HB25-1209 has made it this far in the Legislature.

Its defenders have recycled their usual propaganda in pitching the bill. They insist that, without the bill’s added leniency, vendors might move out of state (oh, no!). Or, that slumping sales tax receipts will undercut schools and other public services that benefit from marijuana sales taxes — a reminder to lawmakers that pot isn’t a ticket to fiscal solvency after all. Some of the lobby’s pitch is plainly self-contradictory, like its claim the current one-ounce limit doesn’t stop customers from walking back into a pot shop after a purchase and buying again. If true, why the need for the legislation, right?

Enough nonsense. Our children’s physical and mental health — and their lives — are on the line. It already is easier for a Colorado 14-year-old to stash a disposable vape pen in his pocket than to pilfer a beer from the family fridge. And he’ll share it with his friends, of course.

If the Democrats who run the Senate care at least as much about our children as they do about chickens, they’ll stare down Big Marijuana’s lobby — and kill HB25-1209.