'Got some good weed, bro': The street near Manchester city centre where you get offered drugs in minutes

“Got some good weed, bro.”

I’ve been on Bury New Road for less than five minutes when I’m approached by someone offering me drugs. I’m minding my own business, sauntering along in the early afternoon sun, when a lad in a black tracksuit accosts me out of nowhere.

I stop and tell him I’m after pregabalin - a prescription drug notoriously rife on the streets around Strangeways. Normally used to treat nerve damage, epilepsy and anxiety, it is also used among Manchester city centre's rough sleepers and drug addicts and has been linked to a growing number of deaths in recent years.

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“No problem,” the lad says. “Ten pound per strip.”

He asks how much I’m looking to pay.

“Forty,” I answer.

He wants to know if I have any cash on me. I explain that I don’t but say I’m meeting a friend who can lend me some.

I tell him I'll be back, then walk further up the road. I loiter for a while on the corner of Moulton Street but it's not long before I hear a piercing whistle and notice the same man walking towards me.

He asks if I’m still interested in the pregabalin, and also offers me cannabis and cocaine. I say I'm not, make my excuses and beat a hasty retreat to my car.

In recent months, a huge police crackdown has seen dozens of warehouses and shops shut, more than one hundred arrests made, and millions of pounds of fake goods seized from Manchester's 'Counterfeit Street'.

GMP launched Operation Vulcan last year in an attempt to dismantle the infamous trade in fake clothing and goods along this stretch of Bury New Road and Great Ducie Street. The force has deemed the blitz a success, with officers claiming