Chewing tobacco isn't popular over there, so it's much easier to enforce. When this finally happens in Canada, it will be much more difficult. I remember an officer once who tried to enforce no dipping inside (which I believe is an actual policy). It would be nice to finally stop having people leaving dip cups around.
Chew definitely made my COVID deployment tolerable. I'm a bridge watchkeeper and it really helped during the mids watches when steady focus was required. People aren't sleeping so the only way to stay awake is with stimulants, that's the reality.
Yah it's not good for you but neither is seven months of lack of sleep, black mold or ship life in General. Do you know what it's like to not touch a piece of grass for 5 months? I'll give you a hint, it's terrible.
I'm not even chewing anymore right now, I quit two weeks before I came home and haven't touched it since. Would I say it made the deployment better, heck yes it did.