BOULDER, Colo. -- A medical marijuana user has been found not guilty of charges that he possessed too much of the drug.

A Boulder County jury acquitted 38-year-old Jason Lauve Thursday of a felony drug possession charge and lesser charges of possessing marijuana and marijuana concentrate.

The Louisville man was charged with possessing 17 times the permitted amount of marijuana the state allows for medical purposes -- 2 ounces and no more than six plants.

Police said they found more than 2 pounds of marijuana during a raid of his home in June 2008.

Lauve, who has a state-issued medical marijuana ID card, suffered severe back injuries after being struck by a snowboarder at Eldora Ski Resort in 2004. He says he uses marijuana to ease his pain.

Lauve and his attorney argued during the trial that Colorado law allows him to decide how much of the drug he needs for his pain.

"There is no evidence that he had more than was medically necessary to treat his severe debilitating medical condition," said Rob Corry, Lauve's attorney, during closing arguments Thursday. "Who gets to decide what is medically necessary?"

Corry said his client had a large amount of pot at his house because he wasn't good at growing it. He said most of the drug's volume was due to such unusable parts as stems and leaves.

Prosecutors countered that accepting the defendant's interpretation of the state's medical marijuana law would give patients "carte blanche" to possess whatever amount of marijuana they wanted, a clear violation of the law's intent.

Prosecutor Karen Lorenz said that while there might be some ambiguity in the law, it was clear Colorado voters wanted some sort of limits in place so that unlimited amounts of pot couldn't be obtained by patients and caregivers.

Lauve said he smoked pot three times a day and ingested it once a day to ease his pain.

The jury of eight men and four women deliberated for three hours before returning a not guilty verdict on all charges.

Lauve left court in a wheelchair with the confiscated marijuana in his lap.

"I have a right to live," Lauve said after the verdict. "All of us as patients have a right to have our own life, not the government's life. We should not be treated like criminals."

In an interview, the jury foreman told reporters that they had no problem with the amount of cannabis Lauve had. They said that he could have had "a ton" and they would have acquitted him because the DA presented no evidence that the amount he had was not medically necessary.

"It's a victory for all medicinal cannabis patients in Colorado," Colorado 420 Coalition said in a news release. "A very intelligent jury has ruled that Article 18, Section 14 of the Colorado Constitution allows a patient to determine what amounts are medically necessary to treat their condition."

Colorado voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2000 to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The state health board last month rejected a proposal to limit medical marijuana suppliers to helping only five patients at a time, allowing dispensaries to continue to thrive in Colorado.

Read more in the Boulder Daily Camera.