The Denver City Council wants to make it easier for illegal drug addicts to get their fix — but harder for law-abiding Denver motorists to get a tank of gas.

That’s no joke. And it speaks volumes about what ails Denver City Hall nowadays.

That’s not to say everyone on the council is in synch with such upside-down policymaking. But a majority seems to have fallen through the looking glass into a wonderland where it all makes sense — to them.

On Monday, eight of 13 council members voted to let Denver’s so-called needle exchanges — where addicts can get free, fresh syringes to shoot up their poison of choice — locate as close to schools and day cares as they want. Right next door, if they wish.

Current Denver law reasonably requires the exchanges to be at least 1,000 feet from schools and day-care centers. That’s a standard feature of zoning codes in other cities and hardly is a lot to ask.

Indeed, it’s a modest restriction on a supposed community service that, by definition, serves people who are breaking the law. Needle exchanges, in fact, shouldn’t be tolerated at all. Touted as an effort to curb the spread of hepatitis, the exchanges only make it easier for addicts to stay on a self-destructive path that likely will end in an overdose. That’s not to mention the spent syringes and other drug debris that end of up in parks and playgrounds.

Meanwhile, as reported this week by The Denver Gazette, the council is pondering a proposal to prohibit new gas stations within a quarter-mile of an existing gas station, a quarter-mile of light-rail stations and 300 feet of a protected or “low-density” residential neighborhood. And existing gas stations couldn’t add gas pumps unless they add electric vehicle chargers.

Evidently, life in Denver isn’t inconvenient enough for council members on the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which advanced this overt assault on automobiles to the full council for consideration later this month.

It’s all part of a war our state and some local governments are waging against gasoline-powered motor vehicles. They are the vehicles, of course, that most Coloradans rely on to get to work, school and shopping.

But our vehicles are blamed for climate change, traffic congestion and sometimes just undermining our sense of community because, y’know, bus stops are such great places to meet people.

So, the self-styled urban visionaries in charge of the war effort are nudging us to take a train, a bus or a bike to get where we want to go — perhaps hauling our groceries home in a basket strapped to our handlebars. Even in January? Why not!

And the Denver council is doing its part to get the rest of us to do the right thing. No matter how ridiculous and unworkable.

The bizarre irony cannot be overstated here: Members of Denver’s City Council see no problem with addicts shooting up next to an elementary school — but won’t abide motorists filling up within a quarter-mile of a light-rail station.

The proposal on needle exchanges faces one final council vote, next week. And the proposal on gas stations still faces a public hearing as well as a couple of votes by the full council. So, there’s some hope of averting the cliff’s edge.

If the council majority nevertheless pushes ahead over the objections of more sensible members, there’s still Mayor Mike Johnston’s veto. We’d urge him to use it.

It would be an opportunity for him to show that at least the executive branch at City Hall is still tethered to reality.