This year has seen several dealers given substantial prison sentences.

Earlier this month Qi Xing Weng, aged 29, was jailed for six years for running a drugs supply ring.

Weng, who owned takeaways in Cobridge and Stafford, came to the attention of police working on Operation Nemesis and was later linked to cannabis factories across the West Midlands.

In September, Damien Miller, aged 27, of Gill Bank Road, Kidsgrove, was jailed for seven years for leading a gang trying to flood cocaine on to the streets of Stoke-on-Trent. In March, 39-year-old Garnet Brown, of Bridgewater Street, in Middleport, was jailed for five years for dealing cocaine and money laundering.