From a very interesting interview with Anthony Bourdain:
AVC: Do you ever feel like your sense of taste or smell was diminished by your drug use?
Bourdain: Who knows? I think, technically, male palates start to decline very early anyway, around 27 or 28. That’s what God made salt for.
On a related note, I used to work in restaurants, and was always fascinated by how my perception of saltiness would fluctuate over the course of a night. You get really sweaty working the line and, by the end of a hectic shift, nothing would taste salty enough for me. I’d sweated out so many electrolytes that my tongue was literally craving a salty refill. Yet another reminder that cravings are contextual.