Cannabis Industry Faces Debt Reckoning Without Bankruptcy Help

If it were like most companies on the losing end of a boom and bust cycle, Schwazze could just turn to the US bankruptcy court to keep its creditors at bay while renegotiating its debt. But unlike most businesses, its product — marijuana — is still illegal in the eyes of the federal government.

That disadvantage will make it harder for Schwazze and other cannabis companies to win concessions from lenders just as a wave of debt that the industry borrowed in recent years to expand in states where weed is legal comes due. The biggest companies, those that operate in more than one state, have as much as $6 billion in debt maturing next year, according to Beau Whitney, chief economist at Whitney Economics, which specializes in the cannabis market.