A Persuasive Speech: Exploring the Health Benefits of Smoking

This presentation delivers a persuasive speech arguing for the health benefits of smoking. It begins by acknowledging common negative perceptions and then presents several arguments supported by research. The speech claims that smoking can aid weight loss due to nicotine's appetite-suppressing effects, and prevent dementia by stimulating brain receptors. It also suggests smoking may sharpen memory, reduce the need for knee replacements, lower the risk of Parkinson's disease, enhance the effectiveness of certain heart medications, decrease the incidence of sarcoidosis and uterine fibroids, and act as an antipsychotic. The conclusion emphasizes that smoking has both advantages and disadvantages, and that the presented facts justify the argument that smoking can be beneficial for health.

Name
26 February 2019
Persuasive Speech Topic: Smoking is good for your health
General Purpose: To persuade
Specific Purpose: To persuade the audience that smoking is good for the health
Central Idea: Today, we encounter another new incident. Many have argued against smoking
bringing forward its impacts, and I believe many here are of the same feat, but few have focused
on the benefits it has. After a careful assessment of viable sources, I have come to concur with
experts that smoking is good for health.
As days and weeks pass by, we encounter news briefing on the benefits of the things we
believe to be bad, but do you believe these stories? The pizza was believed to be bad, but Italian
scientists established that pizzas could help reduce or rather protect the human body from
cancerous infections. Caffeine is a stimulant drug, but the Australian Institute of Sport
demonstrated that it helps athletes to be more powerful and exercise for more extended hours as
well as lose weight at a faster rate1.
First, let us look at the benefits of smoking.
Through smoking, an obese person can lose weight as many studies have shown that
1 Judea Pearl, ‘Bias and Causation, Models and Judgment for Valid Comparisons by WEISBERG, H. I.’ (2012)
68 Biometrics 659.

smokers are often slimmer. Nicotine is believed to be an appetite suppressant thus reducing food
consumption of obese people which ultimately helps to lower their weight.
Experts have established that smoking can help to prevent the commencement of several
dementias. Nicotine helps to stimulate chemical receptors in the human brain. The absence of
these receptors causes dementia; hence their stimulation will stop the onset of dementia2
Experts argue that smoking can help to sharpen the memory and concentration; thus can
be used as a remedy to help those who have Alzheimer live longer. It was suggested by the
Victorian doctors that smoking is used as a concentration booster and for sharpening the brain.
Smoking reduces the risk of knee-replacement surgeries. One might end up without
money while buying cigarettes but you have no idea that it saves a lot of money by avoiding
knee-replacement operations. According to an Australian study, non-joggers primarily made of
smokers reported no incidences needing such operations while the obese joggers were popular in
surgical units for knee-replacement surgeries3
The risk of Parkinson’s disease is reduced by smoking. Research by a group of Harvard
researchers established that smoking is inversely related to Parkinson’s disease. It was found that
the more the smoking, the more the protection and that this protective effect weakens when a
smoker quits smoking.
Smoking enhances the functioning of the heart drug clopidogrel. This is a drug used to
2 Annette R Kaufman and others, ‘Smoking-Related Health Beliefs and Smoking Behavior in the National
Lung Screening Trial’ (2018) 84 Addictive Behaviors 27.
3 Aaron F Waters and others, ‘Understanding the Link between Contingency Management and Smoking
Cessation: The Roles of Sex and Self-Efficacy’ (2018) 84 Addictive Behaviors 99.

reduce clotting of blood in patients with coronary artery diseases and other associated diseases of
the circulatory system that lead to heart attacks and strokes. Tobacco is believed to contain
chemicals that activate protein cytochrome that converts the heart drug into an active state.
Another study on patients with lung cancer who quit smoking revealed that there was an
increase in the number of deaths reported as compared to patients who were still smoking. This
is primarily due to the rate at which one quits smoking after being diagnosed with lung cancer4
Smoking has been found by scientists to have a decreasing effect on the incidence of
sarcoidosis as well as reducing the rate of occurrence of uterine fibroids
Nicotine has been proved by scientists to be an effective antipsychotic. Smoking has
nicotine and thus can be used for this purpose. Research is in progress to develop antipsychotic
drugs that are based on nicotine but without the adverse impacts of the substance or rather
smoking.
Smokers have been reported to have low incidences of aphthous cancer – a type of ulcer
of the mouth presenting itself as a painful and open sore in the upper throat or the inside of the
mouth typified by a rupture of the mucous membrane.
In conclusion, as we have learned by now, smoking has just as many benefits as it has
disadvantages. This is evidence of the fact that every coin has two sides. Debates across the
globe are heating up regarding the benefits attributed to smoking with many opponents of the
fact that smoking is healthy. Owing to the limited literature that exists to support this argument,
researchers find it hard to support their deductions. It may seem hard to convince one that
cigarette smoking is healthy, but I believe the facts I have presented are valid enough to justify
this argument that smoking is good for health.
4 Marc L Steinberg, Shou-En Lu and Jill M Williams, ‘Varenicline for Smoking Reduction in Smokers Not yet
Ready to Quit: A Double-Blind, Proof-of-Concept Randomized Clinical Trial’ (2018) 84 Addictive Behaviors 20.

Bibliography
Kaufman AR and others, ‘Smoking-Related Health Beliefs and Smoking Behavior in the
National Lung Screening Trial’ (2018) 84 Addictive Behaviors 27
Pearl J, ‘Bias and Causation, Models and Judgment for Valid Comparisons by WEISBERG, H.
I.’ (2012) 68 Biometrics 659
Steinberg ML, Lu S-E and Williams JM, ‘Varenicline for Smoking Reduction in Smokers Not
yet Ready to Quit: A Double-Blind, Proof-of-Concept Randomized Clinical Trial’ (2018) 84
Addictive Behaviors 20
Waters AF and others, ‘Understanding the Link between Contingency Management and
Smoking Cessation: The Roles of Sex and Self-Efficacy’ (2018) 84 Addictive Behaviors 99