The California Supreme Court on Thursday disapproved limits on medical marijuana imposed by state lawmakers and upheld a state law that protects the users from arrest, under the circumstances that people with prescriptions for pot can have and grow all they need for personal use.

The high court unanimously ruled lawmakers uphold the voter-approved law that decriminalizes possession of marijuana for ill patients with a doctor's prescription by restricting patients to eight ounces (227 grams) of dried marijuana and six mature or 12 immature plants, making California the first state to legalize it for medical use.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement the decision "confirms our position that the state's possession limits are legal" as applied to medical marijuana cardholders.

The state's quantity restrictions were issued in 2003 under a voluntary identification card program developed to shield against both drug trafficking and incongruous arrest by powering police to quickly verify a patient's prescription.

A lawyer for plaintiff Patrick Kevin Kelly could not be reached immediately for comment.

Chief Justice Ronald George revealed in the court that possession and cultivation limits can still be applied to the authenticated identification cards. However, card holders issued by counties, can't be accused if they possess no more than 8 ounces of marijuana, an amount that individual counties are also allowed to increase.