Teen Marijuana IQ

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012, file photo, a person holds a freshly-rolled marijuana joint just after midnight at the Space Needle in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

(File/Ted S. Warren)

A Pennsylvania man who deliberately lit up a marijuana joint in front of some police officers can't avoid paying a $100 fine for the act, a state Superior Court panel ruled Wednesday.

It took state Judge Jack A. Panella barely three pages to deep-six Amro Elansari's appeal, which the judge described as a "rambling diatribe on the alleged virtues of marijuana."

As Panella noted in his court's opinion on the case, Elansari's May 2014 arrest by Bloomsburg University police "came as no surprise."

The 25-year-old Exton man admitted he fired up his pot in the presence of the cops because he wanted to challenge the constitutionality of the state's drug laws. Specifically, the judge wrote, Elansari stated that he wanted to be able to "smoke marijuana on my balcony."

A Columbia County judge convicted him of possessing a small amount of marijuana and imposed the fine.

Elansari's appeal of that penalty quickly went up in smoke. as Panella observed, Elansari's challenge to his conviction largely focused on "the pleasure he obtains from smoking marijuana."

"Simply explaining that an activity gives one pleasure and that it should be protected as a fundamental liberty under the United States Constitution is not a developed legal argument," the judge wrote in snuffing out Elansari's appeal.