George Soros' Open Society Institute (OSI) will award $10 million in grants to support a new national project to close the gap between the number of Americans who need addiction treatment and available services. The initiative will be led by Victor Capoccia, former head of the addiction prevention and treatment program at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The OSI program will focus on the 80 percent of Americans who need addiction treatment but are unable to access services. Funding will go to local and regional education and advocacy projects that expand treatment programs and health insurance for the uninsured. "The goal is to expand comprehensive treatment systems and to improve the quality of treatment," according to OSI.

The new initiative will be build upon lessons learned in OSI's Baltimore treatment project, founded in 1998 with the goal of expanding access to services. The OSI project has helped spur a significant expansion of funding and treatment slots in the city.

"I have been encouraged by the success Baltimore has had in making treatment more widely accessible so that individuals and families can receive the help they need to lead healthy, productive lives," said Soros. "Now we have the opportunity to address the issue nationally, to call attention to the shortsighted allocation of public funds, leading to a huge gap in the availability of drug addiction treatment for people without adequate insurance."

OSI plans to announce the grant application procedures for the program later this year.