TRENTON -- When Cindy Bronman of Toms River last checked on Friday morning, nearly 40,000 people in the country had signed her online petition urging state officials to add rheumatoid arthritis and lupus to the list of diseases that qualify people for medical marijuana in New Jersey.

But the single mother of four with one grandchild could get 40 million digital signatures at the Care2 petition website and it would not expand the list that patients and their advocates say is way too limiting.

"My doctor is excellent and tried his best to help, but because I'm not on chemotherapy due to cancer, I do not qualify for this drug," Bronman said. "It's absolutely ridiculous that the state is preventing people like me from using a plant that could help."

The 2010 law says the state health commissioner makes that decision based on recommendations from a panel of medical experts that have reviewed requests by the public. And the public can't submit those requests until the commissioner asks for suggestions.

But the panel doesn't exist yet. In March, then-Commissioner Mary O'Dowd said she was going to start seeking volunteers. Last June and July, the health department sent letters to dozens of medical boards asking for nominees, according to an Open Public Records request.

The health department is still reviewing candidates and no appointments have been made, Donna Leusner, spokeswoman for acting Health Commissioner Cathleen D. Bennett said earlier this week.

Medical marijuana report release could lead to expanding N.J. program

"The Department is evaluating qualified candidates for the Review Committee and will carefully examine each candidate with respect to the unique skills required for service on this board," Leusner said. "Once the panel is established, the department will publish a notice announcing that the public can submit petitions."

Cindy Bronman said she wasn't aware of the formal process to add conditions, so out of desperation she created the petition last week. Her doctor told her she's likely to be on chemotherapy for the rest of her life to control her rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, an incurable auto-immune disease, and the nausea, vomiting, headaches and fatigue sap her energy.

"I take the pills on Sunday, and all day long I am in and out of the bathroom. On Monday, it's the same thing," Bronman said. "I take a lot of meds and that is one of them. By the time I am feeling better, it's the following week and it's the same thing."

The Marlboro native who is living in a Toms River motel, Bronman said she is fighting to receive permanent disability payments because she can't work.

She said she buys marijuana illegally because "it is the only way I can eat most days."

State law recognizes six diseases that qualify patients for medical marijuana if their doctors recommend it.

They are amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease; multiple sclerosis; terminal cancer; muscular dystrophy; inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn's disease; and any terminal illness with a prognosis less than a year.

People with seizure disorders, including epilepsy, intractable skeletal muscular spasticity and glaucoma qualify if conventional medicine has failed. People with HIV and AIDS and cancer qualify, too, if they suffer from severe and chronic pain, vomiting and nausea and wasting syndrome.

A state report card of medical marijuana programs released by Advocates for Safe Access last week gave New Jersey 44 out of 50 possible points for the comprehensiveness of its qualifying conditions. It deducted four points off not having a system that allows conditions to be added, however. The overall program, which serves 5,668 patients, earned a C.

Roseanne Scotti, director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New Jersey called the state's inaction on creating a medical panel and letting the public request additions to the illness "a huge failing." People with post traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain are clamoring for relief, she said.

"It would be one thing if people were able to make their case and got turned down, but we have no system right now," Scotti said.

Ken Wolski, a nurse and a founder of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey, has been a leading critic of the Christie administration refusals to add qualifying conditions. The law said the list could be expanded with two years, but the department changed the rules saying it would wait until two annual reports on the program's progress had been published, Wolski said.

The state didn't publish a report until 2014, after a state judge ordered it to do so, Wolski noted.

"Now, nearly a year after that report was done we still have nothing but delay," he said.

Bronman said before she launched the online petition, she called the governor's office, which directed her to call state legislators. The petition had more than 43,000 electronic signatures as of 4:30 p.m. Friday.

"It's a simple plant, but legislators would rather make me take man-made medications," Bronman said. "I would rather take something that won't bring about awful side effects."

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.