Local anesthetics are extensively used in medicine with applications including chronic pain, surgery, and post-surgical treatment. However, there is a great need for innovative administration techniques of such anesthetics because the drugs have short half lives, and are currently not very cost effective. Tri-block copolymers with the formula represented by E_xP_yE_x and x,y denoting the number of repeating units in each block, can self-assemble into quasi-crystalline lattice nanostructures including lamellar, hexagonal-packed cylindrical micelles and cubic packed spherical micelles in selective solvents. In our studies, triblock smart gels created from mixtures of F127 (E₉₉P₆₉E₉₉) and F87 (E₆₁P₄₀E₆₁) were investigated for sustained drug-release that can be fine-tuned from hours to several days. Results showed that the sol-gel transition temperature can be manipulated over a wide temperature range from room temperature to 44 �C by varying the composition of the gels. The nanostructures formed in the gel state were determined by X-ray scattering. Preliminary data of in vitro lidocaine (anesthetics) release showed that a sustained release of about 9 days could be achieved, exhibiting a roughly linear release profile. The rate of release could be slowed down further by incorporating polyelectrolyte complexes (PCs). This novel approach can be used to deliver therapeutics for surgical procedures with tailor-designed release profile.