The analysis focuses on civil commitment and court diversion programs, with emphasis on their potential impacts on reducing the number of intravenous drug abusers at risk for contracting and transmitting the AIDS virus. Recommended actions include the provision of effective methods for detecting drug abusers, appropriate legal protections, systems linkages, treatment, and recognition that drug dependence is chronic. It is also suggested that the criminal justice system use available treatments such as methadone maintenance for referrals. The analysis concludes that civil commitment would help ensure that drug abusers receive treatment, serves a crime prevention function, is separate from post-offense criminal justice system processing, provides clear due-process procedures, and has clear treatment goals rather than only punishment goals. However, it has disadvantages in that it incorporates delays in processing; would overwhelm treatment facilities unless more funding, facilities, and staff are available; may be confronted by many addicts' unwillingness or unsuitability for treatment; and would be administratively cumbersome. Civil commitment also often appears too costly, but this cost is tempered when compared to court and incarceration costs. Tables and 35 references