Table of contents
Katowice was one of the first cities in the region to reach for a night-time ban on alcohol sales. Today it applies in six districts, and the city is trying to extend it across its whole area. In 2024 Katowice spent PLN 12.56m on its municipal programme for preventing and solving alcohol problems and countering drug addiction, of which PLN 7.64m went solely to countering alcoholism. This is money the city collects from alcohol sellers and is required by law to spend on dealing with its consequences. Yet even a dozen or so million a year is a fraction of the real bill - nationwide, the cost of excessive drinking is now estimated at PLN 185bn annually.
In brief
- Programme spending in 2024: PLN 12,560,647.70 (99.58% of plan), including PLN 7,638,923.73 on countering alcoholism and PLN 4,921,723.97 on drug prevention.
- Source of funding: fees for alcohol sales licences, which the law requires to be spent solely on prevention and countering addiction.
- Night ban: retail sales are prohibited from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in 6 districts (Śródmieście, Załęże, Koszutka, Bogucice, Dąbrówka Mała, Szopienice-Burowiec).
- Extension to the whole city: in March 2026 the City Council shelved the motion for procedural reasons (no functioning district councils after the end of their term).
- Municipal Commission for Solving Alcohol Problems in 2024: 181 applications for treatment, 86 referred to court.
- Domestic violence: the MOPS Crisis Intervention Centre helped 834 people, including 169 victims of violence.
- National cost: alcohol costs Poland about PLN 185bn a year (estimate by SGH and the Medical University of Warsaw).
The 2024 budget - what Katowice spends on fighting alcoholism
Every business selling alcohol in Katowice - a shop, bar, restaurant or wholesaler - pays an annual licence fee. This money does not go into the city's common purse: the law requires it to be spent solely on preventing and solving alcohol problems and countering drug addiction. In practice, in 2024 Katowice spent PLN 12,560,647.70 on this purpose, which came to 99.58% of the plan.
| Fund manager | Spent in 2024 |
|---|---|
| Social Policy Department | PLN 7,251,263.47 |
| Municipal Social Welfare Centre | PLN 3,936,166.30 |
| Education and Sport Department | PLN 900,000.00 |
| Schools and educational institutions | PLN 473,217.93 |
| Total (chapters 85153 + 85154) | PLN 12,560,647.70 |
Source: Report of the Mayor of Katowice on the implementation of the Municipal Programme for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol Problems and Countering Drug Addiction for 2024 (Katowice City Council resolution no. XVII/298/25 of 26 June 2025).
Of this sum, chapter 85154 alone - countering alcoholism - accounted for PLN 7,638,923.73, while drug prevention (chapter 85153) took PLN 4,921,723.97. The city budget does not fund addiction treatment itself. Therapy for alcohol dependence and co-dependence at Katowice clinics is covered by the National Health Fund (NFZ), and the city's role is limited to prevention, supporting families, referring people to treatment and monitoring its course.
What the law says. Under Article 18² of the Act of 26 October 1982 on Upbringing in Sobriety and Countering Alcoholism, revenue from licence fees must fund the municipal programme for preventing and solving alcohol problems as well as the drug prevention programme. The city cannot spend it on anything else.
The night ban in Katowice - six districts, step by step
Katowice introduced restrictions on night-time alcohol sales gradually, district by district, each time after public consultation. The first ban covered Śródmieście. Successive City Council resolutions extended it to further districts: resolution no. XXXI/663/21 of 4 February 2021 added Załęże and Szopienice-Burowiec, resolution no. XLIX/1081/22 of 23 June 2022 added Bogucice and Dąbrówka Mała, and resolution no. LXIV/1321/23 of 25 May 2023 added Koszutka. In each of these districts, retail sales of alcoholic beverages are prohibited between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The ban covers shops and petrol stations, but does not apply to restaurants, bars and pubs licensed to serve alcohol for consumption on the premises.
Not everywhere did residents agree to the restrictions. In the consultation in the Giszowiec district, 86% of voters rejected the ban, and in Zawodzie 74.3% did so. In Koszutka the result was almost a tie (313 votes for, 334 against), but after a favourable opinion from the district council the mayor decided to introduce the ban there as well. Each district was therefore decided separately, after local consultation, rather than through a single top-down resolution for the whole city.
What did the police data show?
The Municipal Police Headquarters in Katowice notes that it cannot generate statistics for a single district or for night-time hours alone. It did, however, compare figures from the police stations covering the affected districts, setting the period before the rules came into force (1 March 2020 - 28 February 2021) against the first year they were in effect (1 March 2021 - 28 February 2022):
| Detentions at the sobering-up centre | Before the ban | After the ban |
|---|---|---|
| Station I (Śródmieście) | 545 | 449 |
| Station VI (Śródmieście) | 587 | 462 |
| Station V (Szopienice-Burowiec) | 609 | 562 |
| Station VII (Załęże) | 304 | 214 |
Source: data from the Municipal Police Headquarters in Katowice cited in the 2024 programme implementation report.
In each of the four stations, the number of people taken to the sobering-up centre fell after the ban was introduced. Fines for drinking in prohibited places pointed the same way - for example, at Station I the number of fines under Article 43¹ of the Act on Upbringing in Sobriety dropped from 515 to 187. According to the police, most alcohol-related interventions in public spaces happen in the evening and at night, so limiting night sales genuinely reduces the number of such incidents.
Why didn't the ban cover the whole city?
In autumn 2025, a motion to extend the night ban to all of Katowice was written into the 2026 municipal prevention programme. At the March 2026 session, however, the City Council did not adopt the motion - not because of opposition, but because of a procedural obstacle. The law requires the opinion of district councils before the ban can be extended, and at that point they were not operating because their term had ended. The Mayor of Katowice asked the Silesian Voivode to indicate a lawful path forward, and the matter remains open.
The Municipal Commission and court-ordered treatment
The Municipal Commission for Solving Alcohol Problems is the body that handles the cases of dependent people under the procedure for obligatory addiction treatment, gives opinions on alcohol sales licence applications and inspects sales outlets. In 2024, the Commission's Addiction Treatment Team invited 239 people with an alcohol problem for the first time (106 came forward). Over the whole year, 181 applications for the treatment procedure were received.
| Who filed the treatment application (2024) | Applications |
|---|---|
| Police | 97 |
| Family / private individual | 49 |
| Prosecutor's office | 18 |
| Municipal Social Welfare Centre | 13 |
| Other institutions | 4 |
| Total | 181 |
Source: Report on the implementation of the Municipal Programme for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol Problems of Katowice for 2024.
When does the commission refer a case to court?
If a dependent person does not show up for motivational interviews and does not voluntarily begin therapy, the Commission refers them for examination by court experts and, once dependence is confirmed, files an application with the District Court to order treatment. In 2024, 86 such applications were referred to court - 12 fewer than a year earlier. Most cases are reported by the police, usually concerning people covered by the Blue Card procedure. A treatment order is neither a punishment nor physical coercion, but a court decision imposing the duty to undergo therapy. If this problem appears in your family, you will find practical guidance in our article on how to deal with an alcoholic.
Domestic violence and drunk drivers - alcohol in the data
The heaviest part of the alcohol bill fits into no budget table. Domestic violence is almost always linked to drinking. In 2024 the Katowice MOPS Crisis Intervention Centre helped 834 people, including 169 victims of violence, 134 people using violence and 48 children. The Interdisciplinary Team for countering domestic violence and its diagnostic and support groups met a total of 1,771 times - more than in either of the two previous years. This is a scale that no annual prevention budget can close.
The other face of the same problem is drunk drivers. In 2024 the police in the Silesian Voivodeship carried out almost 3 million sobriety checks and detected more than 10,000 drunk drivers. Each of them is a potential crash, casualty or fatality - and another cost borne not by the offender but by the whole community. We describe the addiction mechanisms that lead to such situations in our article on adult children of alcoholics.
PLN 185bn a year - what alcohol costs Poland and Katowice
The most recent estimate, prepared by a team from the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and the Medical University of Warsaw, puts the total socio-economic cost of excessive alcohol consumption in Poland at PLN 185bn a year. For comparison, the previous estimate by PARPA from 2021 (costs for 2020) put the figure at PLN 93.3bn - in a few years the amount has almost doubled.
| Cost component (Poland) | Estimate |
|---|---|
| Losses from premature deaths | PLN 145.6bn |
| Treatment of alcohol-related illness under NFZ | over PLN 23bn |
| Other costs (incl. lost productivity) | approx. PLN 15bn |
| Justice system and uniformed services | PLN 1.25bn |
| Total | approx. PLN 185bn |
Source: report by the team from the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and the Medical University of Warsaw "The Real Price of Alcohol", cited among others by OKO.press, Rynek Zdrowia and Onet. The items listed are the largest components; the rest of the total consists mainly of lost productivity costs.
To this sum the SGH team adds around 56,000 deaths a year in which alcohol was indicated as the main or a contributing cause. The full PLN 185bn corresponds to almost the entire annual NFZ budget. With 278,090 residents (Statistics Poland data as of 31 December 2024), Katowice accounts for about 0.74% of Poland's population. A cautious proportional extrapolation of the national PLN 185bn gives about PLN 1.4bn in annual social costs of alcohol at the city level - more than a hundred times what Katowice spends on prevention each year. This disproportion shows why no city can balance this account on its own.
Part of the bill is paid with a delay. The ESPAD survey, conducted by the National Centre for Addiction Prevention in 2024, found that 72.9% of pupils aged 15-16 and 91.3% of those aged 17-18 had drunk alcohol at some point in their lives. Some of this group will enter adulthood with an entrenched pattern of risky drinking.
Alcoholism treatment methods available in Katowice
Patients in Katowice have several complementary methods for treating alcohol dependence at their disposal:
- Alcohol detox - outpatient intravenous detoxification under medical supervision, in 3-, 6- or 12-hour variants. The drip replenishes electrolytes and B vitamins, while medication eases withdrawal symptoms.
- Esperal (alcohol implant) - a disulfiram implant that triggers a strong aversive reaction after drinking. The procedure requires at least 24 hours of full abstinence, and its effect lasts about 8 months, after which reimplantation is possible.
- Pharmacotherapy - naltrexone, acamprosate and nalmefene. These drugs do not cause aversion but reduce alcohol craving and stabilise the nervous system.
- Addiction psychotherapy - individual and group, in a cognitive-behavioural or motivational approach. Without working on thought patterns and emotional regulation, abstinence alone rarely lasts long.
We have gathered the full picture of the options on our page about treating alcoholism in Katowice. The choice of method depends on the length of drinking, the patient's health and family situation, which is why the first step should always be a consultation with a specialist.
Need help fighting alcoholism in Katowice?
The Nasz Gabinet team provides addiction treatment at the clinic on Józefowska 76. Detox, Esperal, pharmacotherapy and individual and family therapy.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Katowice spend on fighting alcoholism?
In 2024 Katowice spent PLN 12,560,647.70 on the Municipal Programme for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol Problems and Countering Drug Addiction, which came to 99.58% of the plan. Countering alcoholism alone accounted for PLN 7,638,923.73, and drug prevention for PLN 4,921,723.97. These funds come from alcohol sales licence fees and, under the Act on Upbringing in Sobriety, must be spent solely on this purpose.
Which districts of Katowice have a night-time ban on alcohol sales?
The ban on retail alcohol sales between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. applies in six districts: Śródmieście, Załęże, Koszutka, Bogucice, Dąbrówka Mała and Szopienice-Burowiec. It was introduced through successive Katowice City Council resolutions between 2021 and 2023. The ban covers shops and petrol stations but does not apply to restaurants, bars and pubs licensed to serve alcohol on the premises.
Will the night ban cover all of Katowice?
In March 2026 the City Council did not adopt the motion to extend the ban to the whole city. The reason was not opposition but a procedural obstacle: the law requires the opinion of district councils, which were not operating at the time because their term had ended. The Mayor of Katowice asked the Silesian Voivode to indicate a lawful path forward, so the matter remains open.
When can the Municipal Commission order obligatory treatment?
The Municipal Commission for Solving Alcohol Problems can file a court application for obligatory addiction treatment when a dependent person causes the breakdown of family life, the demoralisation of minors, avoids work or systematically disturbs public order, while at the same time refusing voluntary therapy. In 2024 the Commission in Katowice referred 86 such applications to court. An application can be filed by the family, MOPS, the police or the prosecutor's office.
Is Esperal reimbursed by the NFZ in Katowice?
No. Disulfiram implantation (Esperal) is not on the NFZ list of guaranteed services and in Katowice is performed only in private clinics. The NFZ does, however, fund addiction therapy - outpatient, day-care and inpatient - as well as pharmacotherapy at addiction treatment clinics.
Sources
- Report of the Mayor of Katowice on the implementation of the Municipal Programme for the Prevention and Solving of Alcohol Problems and Countering Drug Addiction for 2024 - Katowice City Council resolution no. XVII/298/25 of 26 June 2025 (Katowice City Hall public bulletin).
- Katowice City Council resolutions no. XXXI/663/21 (4 February 2021), XLIX/1081/22 (23 June 2022) and LXIV/1321/23 (25 May 2023) on limiting the night-time hours of alcohol sales.
- Voivodeship Police Headquarters in Katowice - summary of the Silesian traffic police's activities in 2024 (slaska.policja.gov.pl).
- Report by the team from the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and the Medical University of Warsaw "The Real Price of Alcohol" (about PLN 185bn a year), cited by OKO.press, Rynek Zdrowia and Onet.
- State Agency for the Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problems (PARPA) - 2021 report estimating social costs for 2020 (PLN 93.3bn).
- National Centre for Addiction Prevention - ESPAD Report 2024 (Poland).
- Statistics Poland - population of Katowice as of 31 December 2024.
This article is for informational purposes and does not replace medical or legal consultation. If you or someone close to you is struggling with addiction, please contact a specialist.
