Larissa Mooney

Dr. Larissa Mooney is a board certified addiction psychiatrist and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA.  She is the Director of the UCLA Addiction Medicine Clinic and Acting Chief for the Greater Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Substance Use Disorders Section, where she teaches psychiatrists in training in the clinical management of addictive and mental health disorders.  Dr. Mooney serves on the Executive Board of Directors for the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP).  She has conducted research at UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs on pharmacological and behavioral treatment interventions for addictive disorders.

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance worldwide, and approximately 3 out of 10 users in the United States develop cannabis use disorder (CUD).  The potency of THC, the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, has been rising steadily over the past few decades.  Despite the high prevalence of cannabis use, scientific investigation on cannabis use patterns, health effects, and other functional outcomes has been limited.  Dr. Yih-Ing Hser and I have received funding from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse to study functional outcomes in individuals with cannabis use disorder (CUD).  The aim of this project is to determine if reductions in cannabis use are associated with positive changes in health, psychological symptoms, social outcomes, and other issues related to quality of life.