By BRENT MARTINSt. Joseph PostMissouri voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana today, but opponents to the measure contend supporters are going about it the wrong way.Deputy Treasurer John Payne with Legal Missouri 2022 claims approving the Amendment Three will ease the burden on law enforcement."The 20,000 or so arrests that happen every year for marijuana offenses, and about 90% of those for very minor possession, those are going to go away," Payne tells the Missourinet. "And that's going to free up a lot of law enforcement time to go after more serious crime."Amendment Three made it to the ballot through initiative petition.Payne says Legal Missouri was forced to go the petition route and push for Amendment Three, because lawmakers failed to act."In a perfect world, sure, the legislature should be the ones to do this, but the political class in this state has just refused to act and if we waited for the politicians to actually follow the will of the people on this, then we could be waiting for years if not decades, because they just seem unwilling to touch this issue," according to Payne.But, Executive Director of Save Our State, Scott Dieckhaus, a former state lawmaker from Washington, Missouri, criticizes Legal Missouri for trying to legalize recreational marijuana by changing the state constitution."Over 50,000 words that would be put into our state's constitution and, for context, our state constitution as it currently stands is about 222 pages," Dieckhaus tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. "So, we're looking at putting nearly 40 pages of additional text into the constitution dealing with just this issue."Dieckhaus contends the marijuana industry, in particular those operating under Missouri's medical marijuana law, are pushing the constitutional amendment to push competition out, a charge Legal Missouri disputes.Dieckhaus expects marijuana to be legalized in Missouri, eventually. He faults this approach, though. "If Amendment Three doesn't pass, I would be shocked if we weren't voting on it again in two years," Dieckhaus says. "But my hope is, that if we are voting on it again in two years it's proposed to go into statute, not the constitution and it's drafted with the help of other professionals to make sure that this is good policy for Missourians."Dieckhaus claims the amendment on the ballot today was drafted by the marijuana industry without input from health and law enforcement officials.The Missourinet contributed to this article.