Acea Schomaker, alleged creator of the oft-Googled “kitten bong,” said Tuesday he has sworn off marijuana.

“Mainly because I’m tired of getting fines for something that I believe in, and I really don’t have the money to try to fight any legal battle on it,” Schomaker, 20, said.

Lancaster County sheriff’s deputies ticketed Schomaker on suspicion of misdemeanor animal cruelty Sunday after catching him smoking pot from a contraption that had his girlfriend’s 6-month-old cat, Shadow, stuffed inside its 12-by-6-inch base.

His girlfriend, Marissa Vieux, also was ticketed on suspicion of animal cruelty because she didn’t try to stop Schomaker, Sgt. Andy Stebbing said.

Schomaker said he knows now that what he did was wrong, but the couple said they were trying to help Shadow, not hurt her.

Vieux said she rescued  Shadow about two months ago from friends who had abused the cat. Schomaker said Shadow often would scratch and bite him and Vieux.

Schomaker said he didn’t want to traumatize Shadow by swatting her or squirting water at her, and he didn’t want to take her to an animal shelter because he feared the cat would be euthanized.

Instead, he said, he decided to try putting Shadow in the bong because he had heard that some people calmed their pets by blowing pot smoke in their faces.

“I know for sure this isn’t the first time someone has done this,” he said. “I’m just the first one to get caught.”

Schomaker said he put the cat in the bong three times, all in the past week.

“Every time we took her out, she would pretty much just lay down and proceed to clean herself and act like a stoned person,” he said.

The Sunday incident occurred after the cat bit him on the thumb, he said.

Sheriff’s deputies caught Schomaker using the bong while they were responding to a domestic disturbance call at the house he shares with Vieux and his grandfather.

Schomaker said the bong was built in such a way that the cat did not get immersed in smoke to the extent some might believe.

He said animal specialists lectured him about why what he did was cruel; he said he learned a lesson.

Schomaker said he thinks marijuana is harmless to humans but said it wasn’t safe to expose a small animal with no choice in the matter to marijuana smoke.

“If you just send an animal back to the humane society, if they see it’s aggressive, they’re going to put it down,” he said. “I wanted to give this cat a chance at having a home rather than living in a cage or being dead.”

Bob Downey, executive director at the Capital Humane Society, said he is “ultraconfident” Shadow will find a home. He said the shelter fielded calls from people nationwide, as well as from Lincoln, looking to adopt the cat.

He said he wants to make sure he has legal authority to put Shadow up for adoption before doing so. After that, he said, he expects he’ll find a local home for the cat.