What do federal and state laws say about smoking in nursing homes and assisted living facilities?
Most state laws allow nursing homes some discretion regarding smoking, but most require some form of designated smoking area if smoking is permitted. Federal laws also allow smoking. However, federal laws and most state laws permit nursing homes to be totally smoke-free.
Due to the lack of consistent ALF regulation on the state level and total lack of federal ALF regulation, ALFs are largely free to adopt such smoking policies as they wish. They are also clearly free to adopt total smoke-free policies in most states.