CLAY COUNTY – Brandy Curry isn’t your average beauty queen. When she entered the Miss Petite pageant, she didn’t expect to win. But after a process of several interviews and in-person meetings, she’s will represent Clay County at Tampa for the state level next year.

Curry has had her fair share of struggles in her life. A mother of four, she was a single parent and the only breadwinner for much of her children’s lives. When the first waves of the pandemic started last year, Curry lost her job and found herself at a loss.

“It really opened up my schedule. Not in the way I wanted, but I started having the time to check things off my bucket list,” she said. “Entering a pageant has always been on her list, although she hadn’t gone into it expecting to make it, let alone win the title.

“I’m 5-foot-4, so you know, I found a pageant for short women,” Brandy said. “You kind of think. ‘Hey I can do that; I qualify for that.’”

 Like most, if not all pageant queens, Curry has a platform that she represents to bring awareness and aid to a cause.

“Most of the women there are representing autism or breast cancer, and that’s amazing,” she said. “There’s no knocking on that. But, thanks to God’s blessing, I never really had any experience with that. I don’t have the same emotional connection to those causes.”

Curry instead focused on a more controversial topic: medical marijuana.

After finding herself pregnant while going through a divorce from her husband, Curry became the only support for three young sons.

“It scared me to go to sleep because I was in pain,” Brandy said. “I had this recurring thought every time I closed my eyes ‘what would happen if something happened to me? What would happen to my kids? I’m the only one they have.’ I ended up going to the hospital, and the doctor gave me a big hug and said, ‘Sweetie, that’s stress. That’s anxiety.’”

The doctor prescribed medication, and for a while, it was trial and error trying to find something that would work for her.

“I was on downers to get to sleep, and then uppers in the morning to wake up. It was like I was like a zombie,” she said. “I wasn’t there for my kids when I wanted to be.” It finally came to a head when the antidepressants and other prescription medications had a terrible reaction together. “I died. For a couple of moments there, I was dead.”

She knew something had to change. But when the medicine you need is illegal for all purposes, medicinal or recreational, where are you supposed to go to get help?

“All the people I know who have been hurt by drugs are hurt because of the company that they find themselves in when they’re in the drug community. They find themselves in bad company and in dangerous situations. I’ve seen so many people try to self-medicate. It’s when you’re forced into dangerous situations that you end up breaking the law. That’s what leads to the unpleasant experiences and the run-ins with the law,” she said.

Curry could have received her medical card in Florida when she moved here several years ago, and now uses CBD to treat her anxiety and depression. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean the stigma has been erased.

“Whenever people hear my platform is advocating for medical marijuana, they assume that I’m just some pothead with a chip on my shoulder who wants it to be legal for everyone so I can go get high in peace. That’s not it at all,” Brandy said.

Curry wants to bring awareness to the ways marijuana can ease symptoms of several mental illnesses and bring a sense of normalcy to those who haven’t been able to experience that.

“It’s a plant,” Brandy said. “It’s well and truly a medicine, and I don’t think god would have let us have it if he didn’t know we could use it to help ourselves.”

If anything, Curry is the opposite of lazy. Before losing her job, she was a data analyst for a pharmaceutical company, took care of her four sons, two of which are teenagers, and got engaged and helped her new partner sell his house in Texas and move to Florida.

“It’s been interesting because I’m not ashamed at all about what I stand for, but I’ve had so many people still turn me down because they don’t want to be associated with me. I get it,” she said. “For many people, it’s close to home. I know that if it were my son getting into drugs, I would be just as concerned and against it. It’s a double-edged sword, but there’s still a difference. It can be used safely, and it can be used successfully. Legally.”

Despite everything she’s been through, Curry is still hopeful. “I was an awkward teen, and I’m still an awkward lady,” she said while laughing.

Curry’s signed with a modeling agency and now works alongside them to do the hair and makeup of other models during shoots. She still uses marijuana to ease her symptoms, but things have gotten so much better than they were. When she goes to Tampa to represent Clay, she’s excited about the chance to bring more awareness to the help that medical marijuana offers people, and to remind others who are going through similar things that she went through that they’re not alone.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world,” she said. “That’s one of my favorite quotes. It doesn’t cost anything to say yes or to say no. It doesn’t hurt to stand up for yourself and take the steps you need to take to be healthy. When you become the healthiest version of yourself when you become the best version of yourself that you can, that affects everyone around you.”