sentences:  In 2005, more than 530 distinguished economists called for the legalization of cannabis in an open letter to President Bush, Congress, Governors, and state legislatures.The endorsers included conservative economist Milton Friedman and two other Nobel Prize-winners, Dr. George Akerlof and Dr. Vernon Smith.The letter stated, among other things, "We, the undersigned, call your attention to the attached report [which]... shows that marijuana legalization — replacing prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation — would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods.