Pubdate: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 Date: 01/13/1999 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Author: Kimberly Gossin Editor -- On, no, not the rich kids! My heartfelt sympathies go out to all who love Oscar Scaggs and mourn his tragic death. I must say, however, that your attention paid to the horror of heroin because upper-class kids are suffering from its nasty grip is predictable and very depressing. Poor folks have been abusing, sometimes recovering from and often dying from heroin on a massive scale in the ten years I've lived here. Heroin has been rampant in San Francisco for a long time. Now that it's so strong and cheap I imagine a heck of a lot more poor people are going to be dying from it than wealthy people. KIMBERLY GOSSIN San Francisco