Ha'aretz reports:
[Rabbi Ovadia] Yosef used his weekly lecture on Saturday night to declare that "the heter mechira is alive and well," as it stems from the principle that "the Torah is a Torah of life, 'that a man shall do them [the commandments] and live,' not a Torah of pointless decrees."
He related the story of a married yeshiva student with 10 children who had asked him how to cope with the soaring prices of imported produce.
"I asked him: 'Why don't you buy heter mechira?' He replied: 'They say it's forbidden.' 'They say? Why do you listen to what they say? Do we have a Torah or don't we? Go buy heter mechira!'" Yosef declaimed.
In the same lecture Rabbi Yosef noted that the original heter mechira was issued by a Sefardic rabbi. It was not until the following shmita cycle that Ashkenazim followed suit.