Us Aging Hippies

Apparently, we're expected to continue our illicit drug use into old age with all sorts of dire consequences for our health and health care, according to a short article in Scientific American.
I'm always suspicious of data based on self-reporting, but I kinda like this part:

Intriguingly, the so-called cannabinoid system, which mediates the effects of marijuana in the brain, reduces addictive behavior in aging mice that have been genetically altered to crave alcohol. As the mice age, the cannabinoid receptor binds less frequently to a specific protein, which seems to diminish the animals’ taste for alcohol. No one knows how aging may alter the cannabinoid system in people, but the system has wide-ranging effects on appetite, memory, addiction, and the perception of pain and pleasure.

What wide-ranging effects, exactly? Like less pain, more pleasure, better appetite, worse short-term memory (temporary). Addiction? Good or bad? If it reduces alcohol craving, does it reduce other drug cravings? The author doesn't say, expecting readers to find the original study or something.