​The cause of medical marijuana legalization has something of an unlikely public face in Florida: Larcenia Bullard, a 64-year-old former schoolteacher who is now a state senator.

If you’d told Bullard 35 years ago — back when she was teaching kids for a living — that she’d one day be the most prominent marijuana advocate in the state, she probably would have sent you to the principal’s office, reports Tim Elfrink at Miami New Times.

“I would not have possibly imagined that to be true,” Bullard said with a laugh. “It was not an issue I’d given two thoughts to before.”

But Bullard, a Democrat who spent last year lugging an oxygen cart around the state capitol at Tallahassee because of her heart problems, has become the unlikely hero of the Sunshine State’s growing cannabis movement, New Times reports.